Book reviews

Inge Eriksen: The Lemon Tree
Kim Fupz Aakeson: X
Charlotte Weitze: The Letter Bearer
Jan Sonnergaard: I´m Still Afraid of Caspar Michael Petersen
Juliane Preisler: Boy
Katrine Marie Guldage: Copenhagen
Ida Jessen: Foxy Lady I-V
Christina Hesselholdt: You, My You
Peter Adolphsen: Hum Stone
Vita Andersen: Get a Life
Astrid Saalbach: The End of the World
Kirsten Thorup: No-Man´s Land
Ib Michael: The Pope of India
Dorrit Willumsen: The Bride from Ghent
Lene Henningsen: The Side as a Star
Jens Asbjørn Seehuusen: The Light Rattles
Tommi Pylkkö: All the Best! Postcards from Finland
Pekka Tarkka: Pentti Saarikoski. The years 1964-1983
Pirkko Saisio: The red divorce book
SuviSirkku Talas
Juha Itkonen: Latter-day Saints
Pertti Lande Lindfors: My adventures - in science, liquor, woman and politics
Matti Yrjänä Joensuu: Harjunpää and the priest of evil
Joel Haahtela: Elena
Olli Jalonen: Dyed love
Elina Sana: Surrendered. Prisoners surrendered by Finland to Gestapo
Rakel Helmsdal: Come Over, Hugo
Gunnar Hoydal, Finn Terman Frederiksen og Peter Michael Hornung: The Vertical Landscape. A book about the Faroes painter Bárður Jákupsson
Durita Holm: On the Narrow Paths of Andalusia
Alexandur Kristiansen: Gud er danskari enn Guð (Gu is More Danish Than Guð)
Jóan Pauli Joensen: Faroese Wedding Traditions
Kim Simonsen: Dreams of Open Windows
Iben Mondrup: Invisible Greenlanders
Per Arnoldi: 250 Posters etc.
Erik Skyum-Nielsen: Reviews of Recent Danish Literature
Thomas Bredsdorff: The Age of Enlightment
Jógvan Arge: Conquered Land
Kari Sønsthagen & Torben Weinrreich: Encyclopaedia of Children´s Literature
Claus Jacobsen: Brøndum´s Hotel. The Place and the Food
Ólafur Gunnarsson: The axe and the earth
Sjón: Bird´s milk
Sølvi Björn Sigurdsson: Radio Selfoss
Vidar Hreinsson: The poet who could not sleep
Vigdís Grímsdóttir: Falling star
Linda Vilhjálmsdóttir: A tall story
Práinn Bertelsson: Some kind of me
Einar Kárason: Storm
Gudmundur Andri Thorsson: Mighty grace
Ingólfur Örn Bjørgvinsson og Embla Yr Bárudóttir: Blood-rain
Henrik Langeland: Wonderboy
Ingvar Ambjørnsen: Partially Present
Ingar Sletten Kolloen: Hamsun. The Dreamer
Stian Bromark og Dag Herbjørnsrud: Fear of America
Per Petterson: Out Stealing Horses
Torgrim Eggen: The Looks Factor
Jo Nesbø: Vervet
Øystein Sørensen: Royal Blue
Simon Stranger: That Web of Events We Call the World
Otto Hageberg: Scorched Soul
Thure Erik Lund: The Rivertrappers
Ari Behn: Backyard
Jon Øystein Flink: Ole-Kristian Oksrød
Terje Holtet Larsen: The Peer Gynt Version
Espen Søbye: Kathe, Always Lived in Norway
Nils Uddenberg: Ideas about life, volume 1 and 2
Maarja Talgre: Leo´s daughter
Kerstin Ekman: Lottery scratch cards
Jan Hjärpe: A thousand and one nights & September 11
Peter Englund: The history of silence and and other essays
Lennart Hagerfors: Longing for home
Annika Korpi: Hevonen Horse
Sigrid Kahle: I chose my life
Eva Adolfsson: Listen, I speak!
Cletus Nelson Nwadike: A side of the rain that falls
Kjell Johansson: The lake without a name
Nikanor Teratologen: The apocrypha of Hebbershål
Kristian Lundberg: He who doesn´t speak is dead
Åsa Maria Kraft: In constant lofty conversation between the heads of virgins it takes place
Maria Fagerberg: Black lady

Inge Eriksen
The Lemon Tree
Gyldendal. DK
A contemporary novel about life in Denmark in the year 2001, focusing on a main character called Randi. She is a busy teacher of film studies, and spends a lot of time with her family and friends. But a series of events leads to a change in her attitude to life. The main one is the 11 September disaster in New York, but political developments in Denmark resulting in a distinct swing to the right also sharpen her political and critical awareness.

Kim Fupz Aakeson
X
Gyldendal. DK
Fupz Aakeson is probably best known as a scriptwriter for a number of successful Danish films, but he has also written novels, short stories and plays. His latest novel is based on the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament - just like the films of the Polish director Kieslowski (hence the title "X" ). We follow the ordinary lives of a number of characters living in a big city, and hear about their problems in taking a moral stand in life.

Charlotte Weitze
The Letter Bearer
Samleren. DK
Charlotte Weitze's second novel is realistic and yet fantastic, humorous and yet full of a sinister atmosphere. On a realistic level it is the story of a postman called Kaspar. He is an albino who cannot tolerate sunlight, so he is given a postal round in a permanently cloudy region of mountains. In this mysterious location he meets his destiny in the form of a sheep farmer named Sofie and a flute-player named Lærke. The tiny mountain village is surrounded by mystery and secrets, but we also witness familiar human emotions such as love and jealousy.

Jan Sonnergaard
I'm Still Afraid of Caspar Michael Petersen
Gyldendal. DK
The third volume in a trilogy of short stories that started with Radiator (1997) and Sidste søndag i oktober (The Last Sunday in October) (2000). Sonnergaard's style is uncompromising and insistent, and he draws his readers into a universe that ought to be reserved for adults only. With a merciless de-masking of the happier aspects of life, he paints scenarios of a nightmarish and disturbing nature. The upper-class environments portrayed in these short stories are firmly realistic, and yet they are apparently populated by demonic forces. The result is surrealistic social realism.

Juliane Preisler
Boy
Lindhardt og Ringhof. DK
A psychological novel about a middle-aged woman suffering from depression and self-destructive tendencies owing to the death of her husband. But the plot is not the main focus of the book. We hear very little about the woman's past and possible future. Instead, Preisler concentrates her poetic and epic experimental language on the existential crisis facing the woman. This is a raw portrait of a person at ground zero - and yet the woman's loss may after all be the start of something new.

Katrine Marie Guldage
Copenhagen
Gyldendal. DK
In these eleven short stories the author paints a picture of contemporary Copenhagen. A public space consisting of places, people and events. A place where we only catch brief glimpses of each other's lives. But the city also has its own history of expansion. Have the communities of the past been replaced by isolation and loneliness? Has a meaningful central perspective been replaced by incoherent fragments of a life? The answer is not clear, but the alienation generated by the metropolis forms a general theme throughout the book.

Ida Jessen
Foxy Lady I-V
Gyldendal. DK
In southern Europe there is a mountain village called Fox that is inhabited by women only. In five stories forming a coherent cycle of short stories, we observe a number of women whose lives are linked in a community of destiny. They all have dreams and hopes of love and sexuality, but there is no sense of fulfilment. On the contrary - the women seem to disappear in a surreal world of jealousy, power and hatred.

Christina Hesselholdt
You, My You
Rosinante. DK
This is a novel - but not a traditional psychological, epic story. The interesting thing is the conflict between events and the thoughts (and not least the wildly fantastic images) of the first-person narrator. On the surface this seems like a modern novel of love with plenty of sensual, intimate scenes, but underneath it is a labyrinthine description of the borderline between eroticism and language.  

Peter Adolphsen
Hum Stone
Samleren. DK
A small, subtle and condensed novel (or long short story consisting of small linked stories) about a man in the Swiss Alps who finds a stone that emits a constant humming sound and vibrations. The stone is cut out and handed from hand to hand up through Germany in the 20 th century. In its clinical-scientific form the plot seems almost absurd, but on a more general symbolic level the book also contains a sharp diagnosis of a period of cultural history in the 20 th century.

Vita Andersen
Get a Life
Samleren. DK
This novel follows the childhood and adult life of the main character, Amanda, along two parallel tracks. It is a social-psychological account of a girl who grows up in an orphanage and with foster parents, and yet despite difficult odds she fights her way through to an adult life with a divorced member of the jet-set called Thomas. Amanda tries to give her daughter a different, happier life - but the book shows that even material riches do not ensure any permanent quality of life.

Astrid Saalbach
The End of the World
Gyldendal. DK
Astrid Saalbach won the Nordic playwright award for her play entitled Verdens ende (The End of the World) , performed at Husets Teater in 2003. The main character, called Xenia, is essentially alienated from life, which is also what her name means. She is a stewardess, but in this apparently realistic universe she is thrown into a series of dreamlike events and experiences: she is offered a child instead of her suitcase; she falls in love spontaneously with a mysterious man; and she meets a woman with a highly unusual relationship with time. Saalbach's play contains an accurate diagnosis of life at "the end of the world".

Kirsten Thorup
No-Man's Land
Gyldendal. DK
A social-psychological but mundane, realistic description of a piece of Danish history. The novel deals with Carl Sørensen, a resident of an old-people's home who contracts Alzheimer's disease and loses almost all his language and identity. He is declared incapable of managing his own affairs, and lives in a "no-man's land" with no right of self-determination. But in a wider perspective this is also a novel about how family patterns have changed radically during the 20 th century. 

Ib Michael
The Pope of India
Gyldendal. DK
Ib Michael is a genuine chronicler, a "fantastic realist" with a penchant for fantasy and the exotic. Paven af Indien (The Pope of India) is based on an authentic story told in a long, handwritten account that has been stored in Denmark's Royal Library since the 17 th century. The novel tells the story of Don Felipe, an old Inca prince living in exile in the Andes. He is not content with his misfortune, and fights for justice by sending a long letter to the King of Spain - a letter which becomes the main point of focus in his life.

Dorrit Willumsen
The Bride from Ghent
Gyldendal. DK
A historical novel based on the biography of the main character. The book tells the story of the journey of 13-year-old Princess Elisabeth to Denmark to marry King Christian the Second. The court life that awaits her is not a happy one. Initially she is rejected by the King, who prefers his mistress Dyveke. But gradually she develops a personal strength that also changes the King's relationship with her. The book is primarily a portrait of a strong and uncompromising woman.

Lene Henningsen
The Side as a Star
Lindhardt and Ringhof. DK
This collection of poetry consists of 43 poems in brief, lyrical form divided into 10 sequences. The strength of the poems is their condensed, compressed style based on dreams and visions. In terms of its themes and language, however, the book has a broad range: from religious and natural poetic myths to everyday topics portrayed in smooth, simple language that often even contains a quiet sense of humour.

Jens Asbjørn Seehuusen
The Light Rattles
Lindhardt and Ringhof. DK
The very title of this collection of poetry refers to Seehuusen's exquisite use of poetic imagery, employing as it does the technique of synaesthesia (mixing the senses) to retain and yet expand the world we know. In three separate sequences we are tumultuously exposed to everything from deep happiness and delight, to visions of horror resulting in gloomy pessimism and depression. But it is in this intense contrast between the extremes of life that the poet finds the material and energy for his lyrical practice.

Tommi Pylkkö
All the best! Postcards from Finland
Nemo. FIN
What did people actually do before the mobile phone and SMS existed? They sent each other postcards, of course. The focus in Tommi Pylkkö's book is on the 1960s, which were every bit as ugly as we remember. At least here in Finland. Postcards from towns both small and large show that Finland was in the process of urbanization and that concrete suburbs were a source of pride. Even early shopping malls were put on postcards. An educational picture book which includes a potted history of the postcard.

Pekka Tarkka
Pentti Saarikoski. The years 1964-1983
Otava. FIN
Pentti Saarikoski, one Finland's foremost poets and drinkers through the ages, revisited in 1,300 pages of densely set text (the first 620 pages were in volume 1, published in 1996). It's all here: Saarikoski's poetry, drinking habits, political meanderings, women, travels... The Poet himself is at once insufferable and amiable, ingenious and daft. Required reading for anyone with an interest in literature and recent Finnish history.

Pirkko Saisio
The red divorce book
WSOY. FIN
Somewhat breathlessly but still convincingly, Pirkko Saisio describes the development of a young woman, including the slowly dawning insight that she is a lesbian. Love is as wonderful and as agonizing regardless of whether it is heterosexual or homosexual. The reader is treated to two long relationships and insights into the theatrical scene in Finland in the 1970s and 80s. The excellent dialogue is truly enjoyable, but then Saisio is a well-known playwright.

SuviSirkku Talas
The kindling of a fire -- the correspondence between Aino and Jean Sibelius 1892-1904
SKS. FIN
As always when great men (and women) become great, everything they have ever said and done becomes interesting. These letters contain some unnecessary and slow passages, but it is a unique experience to get so close to Jean and Aino, and to find that they, too, had their mundane troubles and sources of joy (ridiculous or sublime, the way life always is): drinking, money, children, immortal music. The way they switch languages between Finnish and Swedish, even in mid-sentence at times, is particularly fascinating.

Juha Itkonen
Latter-day Saints
Tammi. FIN
Who hasn't had a visit by the Mormons? Those neat, clean-cut American guys who have something important to tell you, but whom you always close the door on before they get a chance. Only now, you can't close the door; Mark and David get under your skin, they become real people. What is really weird is Finland and we, the Finns who live here. An impressive debut novel, not least in terms of language.

Pertti Lande Lindfors
My adventures -- in science, liquor, women and politics
Tammi. FIN
As in Pentti Saarikoski's case, the tangled life of talented and booze-soaked man, this time in autobiographical form (with co-writer Veli-Pekka Leppänen), which has nevertheless resulted in a surprisingly candid book. Lande Lindfors, known to all post-war students at the University of Helsinki, is annoyingly boastful (though more about his achievements in the philosophy of science than his amorous conquests), but still has a paradoxically modest view of himself and life in general. No masterpiece in terms of prose style, but educational for anyone with a taste for eccentrics.

Matti Yrjänä Joensuu
Harjunpää and the priest of evil
Otava. FIN
After ten years of silence, Finland's foremost crime writer is back. It is very clear that Joensuu is no mere amateur but has personal experience of the job; this is a crime novel where every detail feels credible. As usual, the world that Harjunpää guides the reader through is a cruel one: bullying at school, domestic violence, mental illness, not as loosely stuck-on effects but described with insight and compassion. A strong comeback.

Joel Haahtela
Elena
Otava. FIN
James Joyce's organ of choice was the ear, with Haahtela it is the eye. The narrator watches a young girl in a park, day after day. She is the content of his life -- but who is he? The surprise denouement is suitably understated: Elena and her admirer only speak once; the fact that she chooses not to stay and listen to his story makes the book grander, brings out the tragedy of life in sharper relief. The book has a somewhat French air, reminiscent of Renoir.

Olli Jalonen
Dyed love
Otava. FIN
Olli Jalonen returns to the short story format. The achievement here is that Jalonen manages to maintain a laconic tone despite the great emotions he writes about. It is about love, love comes and goes and comes back. A cycle described neither coldly nor warmly -- yet with humanity. The settings are equally convincing whether they consist of student life in Finland in the 1970s, the Gaudi church in Barcelona or North Korea.

Elina Sana
Surrendered. Prisoners surrendered by Finland to Gestapo
WSOY. FIN
Finland only surrendered eight Jews to Nazi Germany, or so history would have it. In fact, they were more if you include the number of prisoners surrendered (about 500 according to Sana, and there were other groups too). An extensive research project, deservedly awarded the Tieto-Finlandia prize for non-fiction, although the sparing editing of the publishers make the book unnecessarily heavy reading.

Rakel Helmsdal
Come Over, Hugo
Bókadeild Føroya Lærarafelags. FO
Rakel Helmsdal's characters often inhabit a fictitious universe which resembles our own in some ways, while being different in others. There is a clear affinity with the genre of fantasy. This book about Hugo is the third in a series about the experiences of a 13-14 year-old boy.

Durita Holm
On the Narrow Paths of Andalusia
Borgen. DK
Durita Holm from the Faroe Islands sailed round the world at the age of 21, but has now settled in Andalusia with her husband and daughter. The people and life of a small village are portrayed here, and she underlines the importance of retaining an open attitude to other cultures.

Alexandur Kristiansen
Gud er danskari enn Guð (God is More Danish Than Guð)
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
The author is one of the most productive and ingenious poets in Faroese literature. He also has a very broad range, and the poems in this collection deal with everything from painting to love and the simple but multi-faceted question: What is a poem?

Jóan Pauli Joensen
Faroese Wedding Traditions
Museum Tusculanums Forlag. DK
This book by a professor of ethnology at the University of the Faroe Islands is the first collected description of wedding traditions in the Faroe Islands from about 1500 until the present day. The book contains a generous range of old and new illustrations.

Kim Simonsen
Dreams of Open Windows
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
In recent years the author has been one of the most productive writers on the Faroe Islands. He asks critical questions about the myths on which modern Faroese nation building is based, and about the responsibility of intellectuals in this connection.

Iben Mondrup
Invisible Greenlanders
Forlaget Atuagkat. GR
A bilingual collection of interviews (Danish/Greenlandic) with young Greenlanders all facing language problems on a daily basis. They are far from uncritical in their comments, but they are also optimistic with regard to the future of Greenlandic as a language.

Per Arnoldi
250 Posters etc.
Aschehoug. DK
The first major collection of the posters of the Danish master Arnoldi, who also comments on most of them himself. Mikael Wivel has written an introductory essay, putting the art of Arnoldi's posters into perspective.

Erik Skyum-Nielsen
Reviews of Recent Danish Literature
Gads Forlag. DK
Almost 600 pages of reviews written by one of Denmark's very best reviewers, giving an all-round impression of the past twenty years of Danish literature. Øystein Rottem provides an expert introduction, and the book ends with a lengthy interview with Erik Skyum-Nielsen.

Thomas Bredsdorff
The Age of Enlightment
Gyldendal. DK
The Enlightment has been at the top of the international agenda (i.e. the American agenda) for a number of years now. And Thomas Bredsdorff, professor at the University of Copenhagen, gives us an entertaining and critical impression of all the many ways in which the Information Age is expressed in the Nordic region.

Jógvan Arge
Conquered Land
Forlagi ð Tjarnardeild. FO
Eight volumes, in which the author recounts the history of Faroese fishing in Greenland. From the early days in 1906 up until its vacillating conclusion in 1989. A book of cultural history that is broad in scope and generously illustrated.

Kari Sønsthagen & Torben Weinrreich
Encyclopaedia of Children's Literature
Branner og Korch. DK
The first true encyclopaedia of children's literature in Danish which is so comprehensive that it can also be used to advantage in other countries. The entries go from "ABC" to the end of the Danish alphabet, and there is also an extensive index.

Claus Jacobsen
Brøndum's Hotel. The Place and the Food
Aschehoug. DK
The first section recounts the history of what may be the most famous hotel in Denmark, while the second contains some of the hotel's classic recipes. The book is richly illustrated with recent photographs in particular, reinforcing the longing for Skagen that is planted in the heart of anyone who has ever been there.

Ólafur Gunnarsson
The axe and the earth
JPV. IS
A grandiose historical novel portraying the life and times of the last catholic bishop in the Nordic countries. In a realistic and traditional style the author describes the fate of bishop Jón Arason and his sons and their struggle against the Reformation, which culminated with their execution in 1550.

Sjón
Bird's milk
Bjartur. IS
An adventurous little novel that combines pathos, grotesque humour and literary craftsmanship. The most cosmopolitan of Icelandic novelists, Sjón here returns to his native tradition, drawing on material from Icelandic folklore as well as romantic poetry.

Sølvi Björn Sigurdsson
Radio Selfoss
Mál og menning. IS
A debut novel about two young boys growing up in a small Icelandic village in the 1990s. Even though this is a familiar subject in Nordic literature, the sheer force of the author's style i.e. the use of symbolic language, characterisation, as well as the apparent ambition which fuels the novel's composition, all bear witness of great talent.

Vidar Hreinsson
The poet who could not sleep
Bjartur. IS
The second volume of the biography of Stephan G. Stephansson. Icelandic-American poet, radical socialist, pacifist and internationalist. A superb presentation of a poet's destiny and rich intellectual life in dire circumstances.

Vigdís Grímsdóttir
Falling star
JPV. IS
The last volume of a trilogy of novels which stretches across three generations and two continents. In this cycle Nordic and South American magical realism are united. The last volume has a surprising twist to it which leaves the reader baffled as she tries to work out the borders between text and reality, art and crime.

Linda Vilhjálmsdóttir
A tall story
Mál og menning. IS
A merciless autobiographical novel that describes the author's self-deceptions and the destructive alcoholism she struggled with for many years. The author is one of Iceland's finest poets.

Práinn Bertelsson
Some kind of me
JPV. IS
A journey through childhood in search of a self. The autobiographical novel is prospering in Icelandic literature these years. This is a fine example of the genre.

Einar Kárason
Storm
Mál og menning. IS
A character scetch of depth and magnitude. Eyvindur Stormur is an Icelandic loafer who exploits the weaknesses of the Icelandic and Danish societies in order to get by with as little effort as possible. His story portrays a memorable personality and sheds light on the societies that foster and bear with him.

Gudmundur Andri Thorsson
Mighty grace
Mál og menning. IS
A mosaic of character descriptions that portrays "the last socialists" in Iceland. A poignant novel about people who have lost their ideals and their history, but whose lives are all the same dependent upon the past.

Ingólfur Örn Bjørgvinsson og Embla Yr Bárudóttir
Blood-rain
Mál og menning. IS
A comic book version of the last part of Njál's saga. The form of the comic book is used to full effect to rewrite   what is perhaps the most gruesome and dramatic part of this major saga.

Henrik Langeland
Wonderboy
Gyldendal. N
This nimble-footed satirical take on the Norwegian media and stock exchange fraternities turned out to be Henrik Langeland's ticket to success last year. It is absolutely possible to read it as a roman à clef; in fact Langeland gave only a handful of his characters pseudonyms of the most elementary kind. A quick read of a genre novel which fits all the criteria.

Ingvar Ambjørnsen
Partially Present
Cappelen. N
Prolific Ambjørnsen is back again - this time with a collection of short stories which shows why he is one of our most widely read writers. In all of his stories we find shadowy figments comprised of the unspoken, repressed and terrifying. It is only rarely that literary aptitude gives second place to originality.

Ingar Sletten Kolloen
Hamsun. The Dreamer
Gyldendal. N
Kolloen has obviously enjoyed writing this book, and his enthusiasm rubs off on the reader. He has effectively succeeded in writing a 'popular' book on Knut Hamsun and can be forgiven for not telling us anything we don't already know, which a good biography strictly speaking should. As far as that is concerned, we look forward to the second volume and hope for the best. 

Stian Bromark og Dag Herbjørnsrud
Fear of America
Tiden. N
The combined talents of Bromark and Herbjørnsrud take the reader on a whirlwind history of attitudes. The sense of deep-rooted cultural and political scepticism felt by old world Europe for new world America is explained eruditely and succinctly, and provides a telling historical backdrop for current displays of popular anti-Americanism.

Per Petterson
Out Stealing Horses
Oktober. N
Per Petterson is Norwegian literature's knight of masculine sensitivity. He pursues the unsaid, the silence of men in their own company, and the timidity of father-and-son relationships. And he gets the reader interested in pursuing them too. The book was a commercial and artistic success when it came out in late 2003.

Torgrim Eggen
The Looks Factor
Cappelen. N
One of Norway's most successful literary satirists puts his sharp, concise and knowledgeable talents to use to do battle with a thinly disguised political party that happens to hold office at the moment. The book would have benefited from the judicious pruning of a hundred or so pages, though its voluminosity does nothing to detract from the pleasures it has in store most of the time.

Jo Nesbø
Vervet
Aschehoug. N
Jo Nesbø is a complete artist. He masters crime fiction to his finger tips. Colossal excitement, dark moods, carefully drawn settings and (almost) realistic characters. Crime in a class of its own. Written by Norway's leading crime writer. That's the simplest way of putting it.

Øystein Sørensen
Royal Blue
Kagge. N
Among Norwegian celebrities, Øystein Sørensen is a creature apart. A historian with a talent for writing with a desire to entertain. This particular historical review of Scandinavian royalty is a farcical romp through madness, perversion, alcoholism and loose morals. To be administered for enjoyment only.

Simon Stranger
That Web of Events We Call the World
Tiden. N
This is one of last year's most sensational first novels. Simon Stranger demonstrates remarkable maturity and sense of form in this sophisticated and ambitious first outing. His finely honed linguistic performance recalls the young Erik Fosnes Hansen; there is, indeed, in that respect, little to separate the two.

Otto Hageberg
Scorched Soul
Samlaget. N
During the course of a long and unusually productive life Ragnvald Skrede remained a prominent literary figure, a respected critic and one of the most important of the clutch of poets to emerge in Norway after the war. But behind his success lay personal tragedy in the form of a conviction for indecent assault of minors. This biography balances successfully the two aspects of Skrede's life and fate.

Thure Erik Lund
The Rivertrappers
Aschehoug. N
The way Thure Erik Lund describes the wacky world of Norwegian country people is giving him a place in the front ranks of our 'folklife' writers. All is not fun, however; village humour has its darker aspects in the powerful accounts of the damaged wreaked by people's sense of paranoia. Thure Erik Lund is never indifferent, generally demanding and always rewarding.  

Ari Behn
Backyard
Kolon. N
This is book number two from the pen of a writer who in the space of a few years - with the help of short stories and blue blood - has become a unique public figure in Norway. The novel, set in Tangiers, drenches the reader with tales of decadence, mythomania, gay sex and alcoholism. But Behn's enthusiasm as a writer shines through all the clamour and bustle.

Jon Øystein Flink
Ole-Kristian Oksrød
Cappelen. N
This is very likely the most impertinent debut of 2003. It will be obvious to all and sundry who the book's patron saint is - Dag Solstad. But Ole-Kristian Oksrød is first and foremost an example of individual, staccato, breathless and overwhelmingly brilliant writing. The artist as a young man, yes please. No doubt about it, Flink is bright. Another helping please. 

Terje Holtet Larsen
The Peer Gynt Version
Kolon. N
Terje Holtet Larsen is in superb control as he gathers together his simultaneously gripping and comical story from the skeins of Norwegian theatre history, Peer Gynt mythology, decadence philosophy and personal biography. Few authors parallel Holtet Larsen's ability to produce literature. And nobody tells fibs like Peer.

Espen Søbye
Kathe, Always Lived in Norway
Oktober. N
Kathe Lasnik was fifteen years old when she died, her life brought to an end in a gas chamber at Auschwitz in the company of other deported Norwegian Jews. In this, his concise and conscientious depiction of Kathe's outwardly undramatic Norwegian childhood, Espen Søbye reveals how her death hinged on deep veins of anti-Semitic sentiment in Norway.

Nils Uddenberg
Ideas about life, volume 1 and 2
Natur och Kultur. S
Doctor and writer Nils Uddenberg won the August award for non-fiction with this 'history of biology' in two volumes, intended as a standard work for studies of both biology and the humanities.

Maarja Talgre
Leo's daughter
Albert Bonniers. S
In her documentary novel Leo - ett estniskt öde (Leo -- an Estonian fate , 1990), Maarja Talgre told the story of her father, an Estonian resistance fighter who went missing in the Second World War. In this sequel, she tells her own story as an Estonian refugee child in Sweden.

Kerstin Ekman
Lottery scratch cards
Albert Bonniers. S
This is the concluding part of Kerstin Ekman's Wolfskin trilogy, about the people in the village of Svartvattnet; it made her the first writer to win the August award twice. The two previous parts of the trilogy were Guds barmhärtighet (God's mercy, 1999) and Sista rompan (The last string , 2002).

Jan Hjärpe
A thousand and one nights & September 11
Prisma. S
In the introduction to this book, Jan Hjärpe wishes to emphasize that this is not a book about Islam. Hjärpe is an expert on Islam and often consulted on the subject, but these are his personal reflections on everything from the development of the history of religions in Sweden to the role of suicide attacks in Middle East politics today.

Peter Englund
The history of silence and other essays
Atlantis. S
Peter Englund, recent new member of the Swedish Academy, gives new perspectives on culture and contemporary life by examining the history of everyday things in short essays: find out about humble items such as the toothbrush, the screwdriver or the hamburger.     

Lennart Hagerfors
Longing for home
Norstedts. S
In telling the story of his early years as the child of Swedish missionaries in the Congo in the 1950s, Lennart Hagerfors gives a double meaning to the concept of homesickness. His entire childhood is marked by always being a stranger, both in Sweden and in Africa, and by always longing for 'home'.

Annika Korpi
Hevonen Horse
Norstedts. S
Annika Korpi's linguistically agile and tragicomic story about precocious and philosophical Eila, whose mother is in a coma at the Clinic, was one of the most critically acclaimed debut novels of last year.

Sigrid Kahle
I chose my life
Albert Bonniers. S
One of Sweden's foremost experts on the Islamic world writes in her memoirs about a rich life which encompasses almost the entire 20th century, from Germany after the First World War to the United States at the time of the Vietnam war. Above all, there are descriptions of her travels in the modern Orient.

Eva Adolfsson
Listen, I speak!
Albert Bonniers. S
'Essays on the reasons for literature' is the subtitle of this collection of texts by Eva Adolfsson, in which she re-reads some of her favourite writers - Moa Martinson, Ivar Lo-Johansson, Birgitta Trotzig - but also tries to sum up the new 'suburban' literature.

Cletus Nelson Nwadike
A side of the rain that falls
Heidruns förlag. S
Born in Nigeria, now living and working in Nässjö in southern Sweden. This contrast resonates throughout Nwadike's wistfully shimmering poetry. Nigeria in his childhood, with the war against Biafra, is a recurrent theme in his third collection of poetry.

Kjell Johansson
The lake without a name
Norstedts. S
Kjell Johansson continues the story that started with Huset vid Flon (The house by the dam , 1997). His return to the class society of his childhood also contains reflections on the importance of literature and imagination.

Nikanor Teratologen
The apocrypha of Hebbershål
Vertigo. S
One of Sweden's most headstrong younger writers returns with another book about life in remote Övre Kågedalen. Many of the extreme characters show up in a new guise, now with a Biblical flavour -- if you can call it that.

Kristian Lundberg
He who doesn't speak is dead
Wahlström & Widstrand. S
Hardcore
No Fun. S
Two 'long poems' hard on each other's heels, consisting largely of journal and diary entries and expressly about 'nothing' established Kristian Lundberg's position as one of the most individual poets of his generation.

Åsa Maria Kraft
In constant lofty conversation between the heads of virgins it takes place
Albert Bonniers. S
Åsa Maria Kraft has been called a conceptualist, and she is one of the most deeply analytical linguistic critics of recent literature. Women's experiences in a male culture, examined here through the lives of four saints, is a consistent theme.

Maria Fagerberg
Black lady
Forum. S
The subject of Maria Fagerberg's gripping debut novel, one of the most acclaimed last year, was a 29-year-old woman struck by an incurable illness and her life in the shadow of death.