‘The fluidity of a city can be very overpowering, both to write and to experience’

🌆

Read an interview with writer Tone Schunnesson, interviewed by Alex Fleming in the latest issue of Swedish Book Review.

swedishbookreview.org/tone-schunne...

‘The city’s language is never fixed; it drifts, mutates, and gathers new meanings with every encounter’

🌆

As part of our series of interviews on city writing, Nisrine Mbarki Ben Ayad discusses the importance of place to her work.

swedishbookreview.org/nisrine-mbar...

We’re delighted to have co-curated the latest issue of the Swedish Book Review! 📚

This special issue on city writing features works by Lyra Ekström Lindbäck, Aris Fioretos, Maxim Grigoriev, Gabriella Håkansson, @ukstaiger.bsky.social and more.

swedishbookreview.org/2025-2

#Europe #CityWriting

"Laestadius’s novel, and indigenous literature in general, teach us the power storytelling has to break the cycle of (trans)generational silence."

From Hakima Choukri's essay 'Ann-Helén Laestadius, the Sámi Scheherazade': swedishbookreview.org/ann-helen-laestadius-sami-scheherazade

"The fields luxuriate in a furiously green hue. Nature appears tamed, or at least adequately conquered: a beast that has been persuaded to obey and produce."

From 'Backwater Beast' (Bygdedjuret) by Sven Olov Karlsson, translated by Alex Fleming.

swedishbookreview.org/backwater-be...

"We were even so bold as to take time off from our working days to pick wild strawberries or go walking and swimming. It was all going so well! That was when we encountered a word – a small, sneaky word – that brought us crashing back down to earth."

swedishbookreview.org/joy-translat...

"Although you’re no monster, Teo, I thought. You’re a lemboj."

From 'An Endlessly Long Spring (En oändligt lång vår) by Lida Starodubtseva, translated by @ksaranpa.bsky.social. Read the rest of the extract here in the latest issue:

swedishbookreview.org/endlessly-lo...

beauty itself draws the veil away
uncovers itself
it isn’t up to you

🏺

Ellen Nordmark's ambitious poetic epic interrogates the cosmos, underworld, and current global political landscape through the intermingling of contemporary tragedy and ancient mythologies.

swedishbookreview.org/epos

"The longer she gets to sit there, the more she understands. She can understand with her hands. She can understand with her feet. She can understand with her smelling, the smells. And that’s bigger than everything."

- 'The Game' by Jörgen Gassilewski, trans. Jane Davis.

swedishbookreview.org/game

“They were everything I wasn’t, and that’s why I loved them."

Pride of Lions (Lejonflock) is a layered text about complex questions of revenge and responsibility, viewed through the prism of secondary-school friendships.

Read Alice Menzies' translation here: swedishbookreview.org/pride-lions

"Pär Engsheden had completed his dress trilogy. Which is what it was in the end: a literary silk fantasy in three acts; a colourful triptych made of textiles."

Read Sara Danius' essay, translated by @darcyhu.bsky.social.

swedishbookreview.org/dressed-chai...

@albertbonniers.bsky.social

SBR 2025:1 is now live! Featuring works by Sara Danius, Yukiko Duke, Jörgen Gassilewski, Linda Jones, Sven Olov Karlsson, Ellen Nordmark, Lida Starodubtseva and more.

swedishbookreview.org/2025-1

Photo credit: Maureen Eijpe on Unsplash