New Swedish Books. Spring 2016 1
NEW SWEDISH BOOKS Champion of Order Joel grows up
in an atmosphere of isolation and deceit in a small community in the region of Skåne during the 1980s. Through the online forums of the nineties and the Swedish discussion forum Flashback of the noughties he finds an identity and a community. “A world in which a paedophile is just as worth listening to as an animal rights activist.” It’s the birth of a troll. Joel becomes an ‘internet soldier’, part of what the extreme right-wing stipulates as the ‘digital combat’. As a novelist and cartoonist Henrik Bromander has always been phenomenal at depicting lonely, dispossessed characters, as well as those who are supposedly evil. In Champion of Order he’s in his element and Joel’s story is far from simple. It’s with an epic and often comical sense of detail that Henrik Bromander impressively contributes to the depiction of the frightening times that we live in. It’s about masculinity in crisis and a rapidly changing society. It’s a Sweden otherwise rarely seen in literature. HENRIK BROMANDER CHAMPION OF ORDER ATLAS RIGHTS: ATLAS Gypsy KATARINA TAIKON GYPSY NATUR & KULTUR RIGHTS: KOJA AGENCY In 1969 the first book about Katitzi was published, marking the beginning of a series of books loved by generations of Swedish children and teenagers. In the books Katarina Taikon describes life seen from the perspective of a young Romani girl, Katitzi. In so doing, she did Swedish society a great educational service. However, this project was already begun with her autobiographical debut Gypsy, published in 1963, and recently rediscovered through the film Taikon as well as through a biography about this well-known writer and civil rights activist. Taikon was the first Romani to describe the life of the Romani in Sweden, something she does in a matter-of-fact manner and without scruples. With hairraising examples she describes the inability of the Swedish state to integrate the Swedish Romani into its welfare project. Her struggle for the rights of the Romani continued throughout her life, and even though the book is now more than fifty years old it’s still terrifyingly relevant today. 18