Swedish Contemporary Fiction 1
Klas Östergren (b. 1955) It is no exaggeration to
call Klas Östergren a national treasure. He is one of only a few writers who can get even committed male non-readers to devote themselves to a 600-page novel. His direct approach never gets tangled up around the language or the questions he puts to society and the individual. In his most highly praised books, he casts himself in the central role – or at least a first-person narrator called Klas Östergren who is a writer and has the same biography as the polite, slightly reserved man who writes stories. He published his first work in 1975, putting out Renegades 748 pages, 2020, Polaris. Rights: Politiken Literary Agency The narrator, familiar from the previous books, Gentlemen and Gangsters, gazes out across the fields from his farm in southern Sweden. It is the spring of 2018, a turbulent time. In the far distance he sees a figure who seems somehow familiar. He is correct in his suspicion – it is Henry Morgan. Gangsters 488 p. 2005, Albert Bonniers (latest edition : 2021, Polaris) Rights: Politiken Literary Agency Klas Östergren perfects his own form of literary fraud in this critically acclaimed sequel. Gangsters is an even darker story about arms deals, persecutions and state abuse. The sequel has wit, razor-sharp language and the ability to register how every aspect of society affects us. Gentlemen 512 p. 1980, Albert Bonniers (latest edition: 2021, Polaris) Rights: Politiken Literary Agency Written with an intense regard for storytelling and style, Gentlemen is one of the most important literary works to emerge from Sweden in the past thirty years – simultaneously celebrating and mourning the post-WWII era with its jazz music, poetry, hidden treasures and espionage. Swedish Contemporary Fiction three somewhat desultory novels before achieving his big break in 1980 with the novel Gentlemen (‘Gentlemen’). It was a phenomenon then and still is, with new editions finding their way to new readers. In Gentlemen, we follow a young, aimless Klas Östergren in Stockholm as he encounters the mysterious Morgan brothers and moves into their grand apartment. Readers today can see how this book captured the end of an epoch with uncanny accuracy. What it could not have known was that a new era was dawning – a time of merciless reckoning with the left-wing currents of the postwar years. Or did Gentlemen somehow see it coming? Östergren handled his success remarkably well, continuing to produce a steady stream of brilliant prose works. Some were broader in scope; others were on a more intimate scale. Then in 2005 came the sequel to Gentlemen, entitled Gangsters (‘Gangsters’). The story delves further into the Morgan brothers’ mysteries as well as Sweden’s shadowy activities during the Second World War and the post-war years. A third volume, entitled Renegades (‘Renegater’), was published in 2020. In it, Klas Östergren writes about ‘Klas Östergren’ being commissioned to write about his time in the Swedish Academy as one scandal after another piled up, finally prompting him to resign from his membership of the prestigious body. Klas Östergren is 67 years old, but his writing remains as young and vital – and his vision as sharp – as ever. Jonas Thente Rights sold to: 3 countries 24 Foto: Charlie Drevstam