New Swedish Books, Autumn 2018 1
59 Autumn 2018 The Man Who Built a House A man is
n’t happy with his house. He thinks it’s too small. So he buys a bigger house. But it has already been somebody else’s before. He wants a new house. So he tears the old one down and builds a new one. But the new house is never quite the way he wants it to be. So he never stops building. New rooms, new drawings, new plans. Life goes on and the house grows. In the end when his life is over, the animals move in. And that’s how it went, for the man who built a house. Anna Höglund’s bizarre story opens up a veritable floodgate of allegorical interpretations and socio-political criticism. With brilliant simplicity some of the more repulsive aspects of Western capitalism are laid bare. At the same time as the genuine ecological aspect that the story concludes with also demonstrates the vanity of people’s aspirations. When the Anthropocene period has finished, the planet will always take over. Anna Höglund (b. 1958) The Man Who Built a House Publisher Lilla Piratförlaget www.lillapiratforlaget.se Rights Lilla Piratförlaget Linda Widman linda@lillapiratforlaget.se Selected Works Titta Hamlet 2017 Om detta talar man endast med kaniner 2013 Vad säger klockorna? 2002 Selected Literary Prizes Astrid Lindgren-priset 2016 Augustpriset 1996 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 1995 Photo: Stefan Tell