New Swedish Books, Spring 2018 1
41 Spring 2018 Mara Lee (b. 1972) Love and Hate P
ublisher Albert Bonniers förlag www.albertbonniersforlag.se Rights Hedlund Agency johanna@hedlundagency.se Selected Works Kom poems 2000 Hennes vård poems 2004 När Andra skriver PhD thesis 2014 Selected Literary Prizes Svenska Dagbladets litteraturpris 2011 Per Olov Enquists pris 2012 Love and Hate To love or hate someone is to be tightly bound. The protagonist in Mara Lee’s poems studies her bonds to two other people: to her ageing mother, who she’s spent half her life trying to break away from, and her young lover, who’s a reincarnated wound from her teenage years. Her painful research comes to embrace fateful anagrams, lupins, Roland Barthes’ final book, Swedish barbarism, sadomasochism, Anne Carson’s crossings out. “I know that words are an extension of my hands”, she says. And like hands, these words can strike, grip and lead. Caress tenderly. Rip a tear in reality. Mara Lee’s return to poetry after three novels (Ladies from 2007, Salome from 2011 and Future Perfect from 2014) is a literary event. Photo: Märta Thisner