Swedish Contemporary Fiction 1
Mikael Niemi (b. 1959) The Torne River Valley str
addles the border between Sweden and Finland in the far north. People there speak Swedish, Finnish, Sámi and Meänkieli, a minority language similar to Finnish. Mikael Niemi grew up in that mixture of cultures. His maternal grandmother was Sámi and his father was a Finnish speaker. He began by writing poetry and children’s and young adult (YA) books. His big breakthrough came in 2000 with a novel for adults: Popular Music from Vittula (‘Populärmusik från Vittula’) is about a boy called Matti who recalls episodes from his life – mainly madcap adventures. One humorous predicament leads to another, and everything revolves around the main story of a boy’s formative years in the remote northern community of Pajala. In that novel, Niemi portrays the Torne River Valley as a strange land where ancient customs, untranslated Finnish words and phrases, large quantities of hard liquor, saunas and Beatles songs are blended into a brew that tasted exotic even to fellow Swedes from further south. The book was an immediate success. It sold in record quantities. Translations were published in 30 languages and it was made into a film. There had been no shortage of books about northern Sweden, but readers were used to stories of characters driven out by poverty and religious piety into the big city, not zany comedy and tall tales. Niemi followed that success with science fictionflavoured stories in The Gristle Hole (‘Svålhålet’, 2004). He has also written more for teens, as well as a crime novel and a play. His two most recent books, Fall Water (‘Fallvatten’, 2012) and To Cook a Bear (‘Koka björn’, 2017), are also set in the Torne River Valley. While they are also fastpaced and entertaining, the comedy has been toned down in favour of greater realism. Each story begins with a crime. Niemi goes beyond the usual crime fiction tropes, though. In To Cook a Bear he highlights difficult, painful aspects of the history and present in the far north: destitution, strict religion, oppression of the Indigenous Sámi people, environmental destruction. A dark cloud would hang over the pages, if it were not for Niemi’s love for – and talent for describing – the beauty of nature and people’s inexhaustible ability to survive. Ingrid Elam Rights sold to: 32 countries 13 Swedish Contemporary Fiction To Cook a Bear 420 p. 2017, Piratförlaget Rights: Hedlund Agency The fantastic story of revivalist preacher Lars Levi Laestadius and the young Sámi boy he saves from a ditch and cares for in the summer of 1852. The novel manages to both entertain and burrow deep down into life’s great philosophical questions. Fall Water 250 p. 2012, Piratförlaget Rights: Hedlund Agency Mikael Niemi’s dramatic story reads like a psychological action thriller, focusing on a group of people and how they are affected by a disaster: are our reactions in an emergency ever predictable? Popular Music from Vittula 238 p. 2000, Norstedts Rights: Hedlund Agency A story of a rural Sweden at once foreign and familiar, as a magical childhood slowly fades with the seasons into adult reality. A jolly and rather wild tale from the north, a harsh yet tender description of those formative years. Foto: Peter Knutson