New Swedish Books, Autumn 2018 1
55 Autumn 2018 Per Nilsson (text) b. 1954 Lisen A
dbåge (ill) b. 1982 I Hate Rabbits and Flowers and Children Publisher Rabén & Sjögren www.rabensjogren.se Rights Rabén & Sjögren Agency Åsa Bergman asa.bergman@rabensjogren.se Lisen Adbåge Selected Works Dom som bestämmer 2018 Koko och Bosse 2013 Kurt och Kio vill ha koja 2009 Lisen Adbåge Selected Literary Prizes Lennart Hellsing-priset 2017 Rolf Wirténs kulturpris 2017 I Hate Rabbits and Flowers and Children The anthropomorphic animal is one of the oldest tropes of children’s literature. Yet it has never been an entirely unproblematic device. Instead of conveying a marginalised and genuinely different perspective, there’s always the risk that the animal functions as the voice of a human, a kind of colonised body and surface to project upon. Because an animal cannot speak, not really. Lisen Adbåge’s masterful depiction of a dog’s day-to-day life turns this ‘truth’ upside down. By using the picture book as an extended sensory apparatus, where the reader’s movements, perspective and sensory impressions are guided by the book’s material conditions, the reader’s experience becomes the dog’s too. Per Nilsson’s text, obviously human, also speaks with the animal’s voice. What emerges is a meeting across species, just as full of life as it is politically and ethically urgent. Photo: Lena Ehrin Photo: Linda Petersson