New Swedish Books, Autumn 2018 1
29 Autumn 2018 The Dream of Europe In the summer
of 2017 the comic book writer Fabian Göranson headed off on a month-long trip through a Europe shaking at its very core. His winding journey is chronicled in The Dream of Europe, an interrailing odyssey through a continent undergoing an identity crisis, threatened both by the shadows of its past and the ominous clouds of a doom-laden future. It is a Europe that has barely had the time to come to terms with the brutality of its own historical ghosts, and where the European Union’s relatively recently acquired peaceful balance is challenged by flows of migration, post-industrial unemployment, and the rise of nationalistic neo-fascism. Göranson uses a simple but effective ‘show, don’t tell’ method as he paints his panorama of an unsettled continent. He describes stories of political incompetence, national identity crises and expanding class differences, where gentrified hipster neighbourhoods of the urban middle-classes co-exist side by side with appalling poverty. The Dream of Europe is a graphic and engaging travelogue, full of striking contrasts and eagle-eyed observations. The themes of the book come together in a feverish apocalyptical vision – which might be the best thing Göranson has ever drawn – but in the end finishes in a confident hopefulness. In the wake of all the catastrophes there follows a future rich in possibilities. Fabian Göranson (b. 1978) The Dream of Europe Publisher Galago www.galago.se Rights Am-book Alessandra Sternfeld alessandra@am-book.com Selected Works Gaskriget 2006 Inferno 2010 Martilo och riddarna 2018 Photo: Johannes Klenell