New Swedish Books. Spring 2016 1
SPRING 2016 Everything Sparkles and Nothing has a
n End KHASHAYAR NADEREHVANDI EVERYTHING SPARKLES AND NOTHING HAS AN END NORSTEDTS FÖRLAG RIGHTS: NORSTEDTS FÖRLAG In the aftermath of war, catastrophe, and love, three voices emerge. In the first passage a broken colloquial language resembles something archaic, almost pompous. When language is pared down to its smallest understandable particles and twisted by a foreign tongue it becomes surprisingly powerful. A war, an ocean, a message in a bottle, starvation and vulnerability are evoked. In the second passage the language is coherent and a first-person narrator contemplates questions about inheritance, class, family, foreignness and the order in which we will die. They go on to consider the notion of becoming a parent yet still being somebody’s child. In the last passage, separate individuals attempt to free themselves from a myriad of bodies. Khashayar Naderehvandi writes forcefully and strikingly about compassion and migration. It’s about a future on this shared planet, beneath a shared sky. An immense responsibility. 9 Photo: David Relan