New Swedish Books, Autumn 2017 1
New Swedish Books 8 Counting Sheep Axel Lindén ma
kes his debut with Counting Sheep. It’s an apparently simple book about rearing sheep on a farm, and keeping notes about it. But everyday life, when laid bare day-by-day and scrutinised, always turns out to be complex. A person’s work isn’t just a series of repeated automatic processes. Thoughts about responsibility, life choices, history and the future circulate beneath the surface. Existence revolves around maintaining and caring for life: animals have to be born, be given food and shelter, and slaughtered. Counting Sheep is a story about the countryside and the conditions that govern it, about the big effect the small things can have. The precise, blunt language paradoxically creates a space that frames the narrator, and his own and his family’s chores on the farm. The reader is presented with a portrait of a human deeply immersed in his endeavours and his reflections, working with something timeless in the midst of modernity. Axel Lindén (b. 1972) Counting Sheep Publisher Albert Bonniers www.albertbonniersforlag.se Rights Bonnier Rights amanda.bertolo.alderin@ bonnierrights.se Photo: Caroline Andersson