New Swedish Books, Autumn 2017 1
29 Autumn 2017 Mount Sun, Melt Ice Mount Sun, Mel
t Ice is a novel about language as a route to a deeper understanding of the world and of life. At the centre are two young men, their destinies mirroring one another. Palestinian Sayed lives in Sweden. In his home the political visionaries Yasser Arafat and Per Albin Hansson look down from posters on the wall. They symbolise the conflict within Sayed as well as his big project – to record sounds, conversations, and music from all across the land. With the help of the edited recordings he wants to paint a picture of all the different sides of Sweden. Sid has an Arabic father and a Swedish mother. He travels to the Middle East to study Arabic in order to be able to read his paternal grandfather’s novel, and falls dangerously in love with a married woman, Salma. Rajid Bahari has written a beautiful, melancholic and gripping novel about our era’s desire to build bridges of compassion between languages, and between our souls. Raja Bahari (b.1981) Mount Sun, Melt Ice Publisher Norstedts www.norstedts.se Rights Norstedts peter.karlsson@norstedts.se Selected Works Allt som återstår Novel 2008 Mot ljuset Novel 2011 Mary Jones historia Novel 2014 Literary Prizes Tidningen Vi:s litteraturpris 2014