New Swedish Books, Spring 2018 1
75 Spring 2018 We’ll Soon be Home Again When righ
t-wing extremism and antisemitism are being evoked once again it’s the alarm-bell needed to remind us never to forget the horrors of the Holocaust. We’ll Soon be Home Again is aimed specifically at younger teens and is based on interviews with six Holocaust survivors, their fates becoming a moving cry for compassion. The reader follows each one as they are stripped of their possessions, and lose their loved-ones and their dignity. Using the perspective of a first-person narrative allows the stories to really get under your skin as they describe their persecutions in the Ghetto, the dehumanisation and the starvation in the concentration camps, and the industrial-scale mass murder taking place in the extermination camps. Thanks to Peter Bergting’s powerful drawings We’ll Soon be Home Again remains a starkly beautiful book. Bergting is one of Sweden’s most internationally renowned comic book illustrators but until now has worked mostly with epic fantasy. Bergting’s clean lines and muted colour palette give each panel a feeling of greyish, damp desperation. And a portrait of Doctor Mengele, with half his face transformed into a grinning death mask, is sure to cause many a nightmare. Jessica Bab Bonde (text) b. 1974 Peter Bergting (ill) b. 1970 We’ll Soon be Home Again Publisher Natur & Kultur www.nok.se Rights Koja Agency catharina.lantz@kojaagency.com Jessica Bab Bonde Works as a literary agent. We’ll be Home Again Soon is her debut. Peter Bergting Selected Works Gängkrig 145 (together with Jens Lapidus, text) 2009 Domovoi 2013 Vad som än står (together with Cyril Hellman, text) 2016 Literary Prizes The Gran Guinigi Award for Best Short Comic with Joe R. Lansdale 2013 Eisner Award for the anthology Popgun 3 2013 The Adamson statuette from The Swedish Academy of Comics 2015 Photo: Sofia Runarsdotter Photo: José Figueroa