New Swedish Books, Autumn 2018 1
51 Autumn 2018 Sven Nordqvist (b. 1946) The Dog W
alk Publisher Opal www.opal.se Rights Opal Melina Nordstrand melina@opal.se Selected Works Var är min syster? 2007 Tomtemaskinen 1994 Hattjakten 1987 Literary Prizes Augustpriset 2007 Astrid Lindgren-priset 2003 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 1992 The Dog Walk The boy goes on a walk with the old lady’s longhaired white dog. Everybody is happy. The first spread of Sven Nordqvist’s new wordless saga is almost banal in its crystal clear simplicity. A lesson in illustration from the master. The command over the message is total. But then it takes off. From a train station of distinctly Victorian appearance the dog walk is launched into one fantastical landscape after another. Gentle dreamy summer tableaux share space with changes in scale and transgressions between culture and nature, which we recognise from Nordqvist’s extensive back catalogue. But there are also spookier and absurd, slightly nightmarish fantasies here, often accompanied by humoristic references from art history. Each spread follows the progression of the walk, but also experiments with a huge number of contradictory directions and temporalities. Browse and a new world will open up, a world whose message the reader has to find for themselves. Magnificent! Photo: Alexander Lagergren