Swedish Contemporary Fiction 1
Amanda Svensson (b. 1987) The quality that charac
terises Amanda Svensson’s writing most of all is perhaps its inexhaustible energy. There is something hyperactive and slightly restless in both her prose style and her way of looking at the world. She has maintained that energy through all her novels, even as they have grown over the years in terms of subject matter and scope. The main character in her first novel Hey Dolly (‘Hey Dolly’, 2008) is a young woman on the threshold of adulthood. She is deeply insecure and irrepressible at the same time, living partly in a dream world and partly in the real, modern-day world. Dolly’s awkward search for her identity ranges from the funny to the serious. Hey Dolly is the first title in a loose trilogy about A System so Magnificent it is Blinding 552 p. 2019, Norstedts Rights: Norstedts Agency Amanda Svensson’s fourth book is a quirky, maze-like novel about small, seemingly insignificant details that may just be pieces of a bigger picture. But more than anything, it is a story about family, about misunderstandings, shortcomings and forgiveness. All Those Things I Said to You Were True 224 p. 2014, Norstedts Rights: Norstedts Agency She arrives at the creative writing school, somewhere in the countryside, with an ambition to learn how love tastes. A story about stories, about how they divide and heal and about a young woman and her struggle to find her own identity. Welcome to this World 240 p. 2011, Norstedts Rights: Norstedts Agency Greta works in a hip restaurant, but dreams of becoming a DJ. Then one day she meets Simon who is the best triangle drawer in Copenhagen. With Simon follows Claus. It soon becomes clear that this is not a golden triangle, but one that inevitably must break. young people, primarily women, lost and on the cusp of adulthood. Welcome to This World (‘Välkommen till den här världen’, 2011) is a love triangle set in a chaotic artists’ collective, the club scene and restaurant jobs in Malmö and Copenhagen. And in the follow-up, All Those Things I Said to You Were True (‘Allt det där jag sa till dig var sant’, 2014), Svensson continues with the theme of searching for an identity. The protagonist is in a controlling, selfdestructive romance with an unpleasant, pretentious young man at a creative writing school. He takes control of her identity until she is rescued by a female friend who whisks her away on a meandering makebelieve pirate adventure. The story is a tribute to the power of storytelling – and friendship. In her latest novel, A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding (‘Ett system så magnifikt att det bländar’, 2019), Amanda Svensson picks up a wider range of moods in an uneasy contemporary setting marked by the climate crisis and conflicts. At the centre is a fragmented family with three very different sisters who are triplets. In a dizzying plot, their internal and external relationships are stretched to breaking point. With its punchy dialogue and intricately constructed plot, this book almost seems more a part of the English-language tradition than the Swedish. It is a dystopian work, but it is written with such a breezy voice that it might also convey some hope of survival. Annina Rabe Rights sold to: 9 countries Swedish Contemporary Fiction 20 Foto: Alexandra A. Ellis