New Swedish Books, autumn 2020 1
New Swedish Books 50 L-ng Home L-ng Away Ingrid E
lam’s choice Escape and exile, breaking free and travelling home are some of the great themes of world literature and also the subjects of Kristoffer Leandoer’s essay L-ng Home L-ng Away. Leandoer is exceptionally well-read and moves with equal ease through Ovid’s Tomis, Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead or the very capital of exiles – Paris. His highly evolved aptitude for creating unexpected associations that fire the reader’s imagination makes this book an adventure – a journey through a library that resembles the world. You leave Naxos and Aeneas and in the next breath you’re with Yoko Tawada in Berlin or by Edmund de Waal’s potter’s wheel as he attempts, using a piece of clay, “to still a small part of the world, make an inside space”. The ceramicist’s task echoes that of the author and the reader: to create a room of one’s own, an inner exile. Kristoffer Leandoer Selected works Flipperspelaren 1996 Skymningsfursten: en roman om det främmande 2005 De försvunna böckernas bibliotek 2016 Selected awards De Nios Vinterpris 2008 Sorescupriset 2016 Karin Gierows pris 2017 Literary criticism, 413 p. Kristoffer Leandoer Publisher Natur & Kultur Rights Natur & Kultur Anders Bergman anders.bergman@nok.se Photo: Marcus Johansson