New Swedish Books, Spring 2018 1
New Swedish Books 6 The Father It’s the early eig
hties, in a small rural community where more and more people are abandoning agriculture for factory work. A violent father tyrannises his family. They’re to love Jesus, but fear communism, the school disco and the father’s shotgun. And only children who are seen and not heard are worthy of love. This is where the talkative Katja comes in, the girl who knows that all fathers will one day bend like grass. Her sharp, laconically formulated observations make her a living figure, full of inspiring, uproarious sensuality. She is a response to the question the author asked in her PhD thesis Despairing Readings, published in 2015: can literature and aesthetic form offer resistance to the power structures they depict? Hjorth’s method is to depict intense experiences in few words, turning the prose into a concentrated form of life. ELISABETH HJORTH ROMAN Elisabeth Hjorth (b. 1975) The Father Publisher 10tal bok www.10tal.se Rights 10tal bok m.grive@10tal.se Selected Works Hängivelsen novel 2011 Vid himlens början novel 2013 Nattens regn och dagens möda novel 2017 FADERN Photo: Pernilla Ahlsén