New Swedish Voices 1
a novel about being a young boy. It has been very
successful with male readers, especially. The new epic Speaking of men: just as Swedish men read less than Swedish women, male authors have retreated to the wings on the Swedish debut stage. Women account for two thirds of all Swedish awardwinning debut novelists since the 2010s. Among the very most influential is Lydia “The days have long passed when short experimental prose dominated Swedish fiction.” Sandgren, who debuted with Collected Works (’Samlade verk’, 2020), an epic family saga of nearly 700 pages set in the literature and art world of the late 1980s. Collected Works takes place, in fact, in a city, but a rather obscure one by literary lights. Gothenburg is Sweden’s unglamorous second city: so much so that surprised Stockholmers asked the critically acclaimed Sandgren (according to an interview in Vi läser magazine) if she ‘still lived there’ after her debut success. The new authors already mentioned, like Smirnoff and Yvesand, also belong to the epic trend. Novels today exceed 300 pages; the days have long passed when short experimental prose dominated Swedish fiction. Even the new Swedish poetry sensation might justifiably be called an epic. Marit Kapla’s Osebol (2019) is a page-turner brimming with stories, a book of poetry that runs to 812 pages, and an unexpected, original, unforgettable debut success. It begins (in Peter Graves’ translation): ‘Let me tell you something … my life has been like Värmland. Mountains and valleys. It’s had its ups and its downs.’ Speaking is Åke Axelsson, one of 42 residents of the village of Osebol on the Klar River in northern Värmland who gave their stories – Kapla asked every resident of the village for an interview! – to be New Swedish Voices transmuted into verse that harks back to the New Simplicity. Life in Osebol means hunting moose and weaving rugs, fishing and the potato patch, wild strawberries and lingonberries, the children, the land. An important bit of context: Kapla herself grew up in Osebol. She has since moved away and takes her place in the book only as a listener at the kitchen table, a drinker of coffee, an amanuens of life in the country. Poetry of grief and rebellion Can we even speak of a literary trend that involves poets writing from their own experiences of terrible hardship? Some of the most noted debut works of Swedish poetry in recent years have been about sorrow and pain. Their creation can hardly be called a trend; they seem to spring from sheer necessity. Still, in the way they penetrate the clamour and make a strong impression, they seem to capture something we need for the hard times we live in. Formally, their fragmented lines may be unmatched for dealing with weighty topics. These poets write so we feel it. Erik Lindman Mata’s Pure (‘Pur’, 2020) deals with the loss of a murdered girlfriend. His verse is deeply personal, of course, but it also borders on the political. In one breath Mata creates new poetic images, in the next he rebels and reclaims women’s murders from the “The days have long passed when short experimental prose dominated Swedish fiction.” popular true crime genre, to breathtaking and touching affect. Sorin Masifi’s State, Sisters, Poetry (‘Staten, Systrarna, Dikten’, 2022) also focuses on a loss, this time the loss of a beloved sister. Masifi’s own state is Kurdistan, where her family has its roots. She crafts lines about her her sister that speak to a history of oppression and colonialism. ‘The thing in your hand is a weapon / The thing in your hand is an archive / The thing in your hand is a poem.’ 12