Pia Ingström

1) What makes good criticism?

Good criticism arises when the critic has looked for different ways to approach a text and found a way in. A boring critic always approaches a work from the same angle: its psychological sensitivity, whether it is experimental / post-modern, questions of genre, or whatever their favourite 'door' to a text happens to be, even if they have to batter the walls down to get in that way. Then they criticise the text because their way in didn't work. A good critic approaches a work as an expression of something that may interest someone in the world.

2) Which of your own reviews are you most pleased with?

No comments.

3) What do you enjoy reading yourself?

I enjoy reading novels that claim to deal with world issues, and not merely themselves, language or their own powerlessness. Intelligent biographies which are startled at the outside world: "God bless all the precious little examples and all their cascading implications." (Stephen Jay Gould)

Pia Ingström
(born 1958) has been been working as both journalist and critic at Hufvudstadsbladet since the late 1980s and is currently literary editor of the newspaper's culture section. This is a position of great responsibility, as literature has always traditionally been seen as the most important cultural expression of linguistic minorities. She is very well read in many areas and has a particularly wide understanding of theory. Her work as a critic is characterised by sharp, focused reading and intergrity, and she is not afraid to say what she thinks. Her attitude is encouraging: if literature is a forum for scrutinising current issues, then it ought to be discussed with intellectual clarity. Pia Ingström does this regardless.