New Swedish Books, Autumn 2017 1
9 Autumn 2017 Dying Other People’s Deaths Dying O
ther People’s Deaths is Lars Raattamaa’s first novel. As a poet he’s already well established among his contemporaries in Sweden. He’s an architect who lives in Stockholm, but originates from the Torne valley in Northern Sweden. During a particularly harsh winter a train gets stuck in the snow. In the dining carriage Anti and Anni begin to talk. They’re both from the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg, but now they’re on their way to the Torne valley. Conversations between strangers on trains always have a particularly intimate and confidential tone; as if the train is a stage that’s simultaneously public and exists only for those involved in the conversation. The novel uses flashbacks to explore Anti and Anni’s time as well as our own. It’s about politics, personal struggles, the manifestation of history and society through architecture, and the place of humans and human values. And it’s about light – probably even more significant in the far north – how it exists and behaves in the landscape and in people. Lars Raattamaa (b. 1964) Dying Other People’s Deaths Publisher Albert Bonniers www.albertbonniersforlag.se Rights Albert Bonniers helena.ljungstrom@ albertbonniers.se Selected Works Svensk dikt Poems 2006 Mallamerik, malllammer, malameri, mallame, amerik, mallameka, merrikka Poems 2008 Kommunismen Poems 2014 Selected Literary Prizes De Nios Vinterpris 2000 Sveriges Radios lyrikpris 2001 Aftonbladets litteraturpris 2003 Melancholy Elisabeth Rynell (b. 1954) Melancholy Set in a future Swedish society, perhaps not that distant, where great changes are taking place. With urban development and the desire for efficiency driven to extremes, people deemed unprofitable are being deported. Moll lives in a flat in a big city and is ordered, together with the rest of the tenants in her building, to get on a bus that will transfer them to Sveg, a northern town in the county of Härjedalen. During the journey she escapes and ends up in what she thinks is an abandoned village. Elisabeth Rynell is a poet, novelist and essayist, who always defends freedom of both thought and way of life. Here she weaves a fascinating and poetic story about the future, change, and the principal human needs of intimacy and care. It’s a dark vision, further developing a set of central ideas in Rynell’s writing, where glimmers of hope are to be found in people’s bonds to each other. Publisher Albert Bonniers www.albertbonniersforlag.se Rights Bonnier Rights amanda.bertolo.alderin@ bonnierrights.se Selected Works I mina hus Poems 2006 Hitta Hem Novel 2009 Skrivandets sinne Essays 2013 Selected Literary Prizes Tidningen Vi:s litteraturpris 1997 Sara Lidman-priset 2014 Samfundet De Nios vinterpris 2017 Photo: Fanny Varga Photo: Cato Lein