New Swedish Books, Autumn 2018 1
New Swedish Books 6 Tova Gerge (b. 1982) The boy
Publisher Albert Bonniers Förlag www.albertbonniersforlag.se Rights Albert Bonniers Förlag Helene Atterling helene.atterling@ albertbonniersforlag.se Works Manualen (with Athena Farrokhzad), poems, 2009 The boy The Boy is a morally complex story about two vulnerable young people with the common desire to create their own private power structure, but who are unable to escape the greater power structures of gender and class. The narrator knows that he is “in the grey area tending towards something ugly, something called ‘the perpetrator’.” He subjects his partner, “the boy”, to humiliation, pain and discipline, but beyond the boy’s submission, the narrator senses resistance – something that defies control. Tova Gerge describes with remarkable precision the desires that bind the narrator and the boy so closely. She shows the tenderness, care and reciprocity within their relationship, and enables the reader to understand the escalating feelings of powerlessness that drive the narrator to the point of violent extremity. Photo: Moa Schulman