| Book reviews
Reko Lundán: Rinnakkain (Side by Side)
Reidar Palmgren: Lentämisen alkeet (The ABC of Flying)
Pirjo Hassinen: Kuninkaanpuisto (King's Park)
Agneta Pleijel: Mostrarna och andra dikter (The Aunts and other poems)
Ulrika Knutson: Women on the Verge of a Breakthrough
Hanne Ørstavik: Presten (The Pastor)
Kjartan Fløgstad: Brennbart (Inflammable)
Bjørn Aamodt: Arbeidsstykker og atten tauverk (Workpieces and Eighteen Lengths of Rope)
Lars Saabye Christensen: Oscar Wildes heis (Oscar Wilde's Lift)
Arnaldur Indriðason: The Draining Lake
Halldór Guðmundsson: Halldór Laxness. A Biography
Jóhanna Kristjánsdóttir: Arabian Women
Guðrún Helgadóttir: A Different Family
Jens Pauli A. Nolsøe og Kári Jespersen: Havnar Søga I-II (The History of Tórshavn I-II)
Oddvør Johansen: Sebastians hús (Sebastian's House)
Marjun Kjelnæs: Ein farri av kolvetni (A Touch of Carbon Dioxide)
Turið Sigurðardóttir: Bókmentasøgur (Literary Histories)
Tóroddur Poulsen: Eygnamørk (The Boundary of the Eye)
Hans Edvard Nørregård-Nielsen: Dengang i Italien (Once upon a time in Italy)
Lars-Henrik Schmidt: Om respekten (On Respect)
Bo Tao Michaëlis: Verdenslitteraturens store forførere (Great Seducers in World Literature)
Espen Haavardsholm: Gutten på passbildet (The Boy in the Passport Picture)
Lars Ove Seljestad: Blind (Blind)
Ingar Sletten Kolloen: Hamsun, erobreren (Hamsun, the Victor)
Erlend Loe: Doppler
Jørgen Sandemose: Flyktningen. Aksel Sandemose - en biografi (The Refugee. Aksel Sandemose - a Biography)
Levi Henriksen: Snø vil falle over snø som har falt (Snow will Fall over Fallen Snow)
Ole Asbjørn Ness: Det er natt (Night Has Fallen)
Ingvar Ambjørnsen: Innocentia Park
Pia Tafdrup: Hengivelsen (Abandonment)
Peter Laugesen: Divanord (Divan Words)
Morten Søndergaard: At holde havet tilbage med en kost (Keeping the Sea at Bay with a Broom)
Henrik Nordbrandt: Pjaltefisk (Leafy Sea-Dragon)
Torsten Ekbom: The Invisible Court
Fredrik Sjöberg: The Fly Trap
Sverker Sörlin: The World Order and The Darkness in Man
Lotta Lotass: The Third Speed of Flying
Bo Green Jensen: Den store epoke (The Great Age)
Jens Blendstrup: Gud taler ud (God Speaks His Mind)
Camilla Christensen: Paradis (Paradise)
Arno Kotro: Sanovat sitä rakkaudeksi (They Call It Love) and Musta morsian
Ilpo Tiihonen: Largo
Christian Matras: Yrkingar (Poems)
Jógvan Isaksen: Mellem middelalder og modernitet. Omkring William Heinesens prosa. (Between the Middles Ages and Modernity. On William Heinesen's Prose Works)
Kim Simonsen: Kodakmyndir frá sjeytiárunum (Kodak Pictures from the Seventies)
Morten Blok: At bære væslerne hjem (Bringing Home the Weasels)
Erling Jepsen: Frygtelig lykkelig (Terribly Happy)
Erik Wahlström: Den dansande prästen (The Dancing Priest)
Pirkko Lindberg: SOS Tuvalu
Stella Parland (text) Linda Bondestam (bild): Delirium. Romanen om en hund (Delirium. The Story of a Dog)
Anders Larsson: En liten man i norr (A Little Man in the North)
Mikaela Sundström: Till alla hästar och till vissa flickor (To All Horses and To Certain Girls)
Tor Bomann-Larsen: Folket, Haakon og Maud II (The People, Haakon and Maud II)
Lars Ramslie: Uglybugly
Thomas Hylland Eriksen: Røtter og føtter. Identitet i en omskiftelig tid (Roots and Boots. Identity in a Mutable Age)
Riitta Jalonen (text) - Kristiina Louhi: Tyttö ja naakkapuu (The Girl and the Jackdaws)
Kari Hotakainen: Satukirja (The Saga Book)
Sindri Freysson: Flóttinn (The Escape)
Huldar Breiðfjörð: Múrinn í Kína (The Great Wall of China)
Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir: Karítas án titils (Karitas: Untitled)
Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl: Hugsjónadruslan. (The Ideological Slut)
Svend Åge Madsen: Levemåder
Jökull Valsson: Börnin í Húmdölum (Children in the Valley of Shadows)
Guðbergur Bergsson: Lömuðu kennslukonurnar (The Paralysed School Mistresses)
Jens Christian Grøndahl: Piazza Bucarest
Lene Henningsen: Bølgen tegner præcist (The Wave Draws Accurately)
Iben Claces: Akikos ammehjerne (Kikos' Breast-feeding Brain)
Christian Yde Frostholm: Afrevne ord (Torn Off Words)
Tumppi Varonen-Sannaliina Nikula: Poika joka tahtoo lentää (The Boy Who Wants to Fly)
Ingrid Elam: Min obetydliga beundran (My Insignificant Admiration)
Katarina Frostenson: Karkas (Carcase)
Eva Ström: Rött vill till rött (Red Seeks Red)
Håkan Bravinger: Och öser sin tystnad över oss (And Pours His Silence Over Us)
Elsa Grave: Dikter (Poems)
Birgitta Stenberg: Alla vilda (All Wild)
Ida Börjel: Sond (Probe)
Rune Palm: Vikingarnas språk (The Language of the Vikings)
Tomas Andersson och Stefan Foconi: Gubben i taket (The Old Man on the Ceiling)
Per Hagman: Att komma hem ska vara en schlager (Coming Home Should Be a Hit)
Ralf Andtbacka: En fisk som man kan se (A Fish One Can See)
Sabine Forsblom: Maskrosguden (The Dandelion God)
Klaus Rifbjerg: Pap (Cardboard)
Reko Lundán
Rinnakkain (Side by Side)
WSOY. FIN
The residential area gets an unwelcome guest - a home for addicts is to be set up in one of the houses. The residents are hit by the Nimby syndrome (Not In My Back Yard). On top of this, the main character, anxious father-of-two Jarmo Koponen, is left on his own for a year when his wife gets a job in Brussels. This makes him even more anxious. Finnish kitchen-sink realism at its best. What's more there is a happy ending, as the residents overcome their Nimby fears and the home for addicts comes to fruition.
Reidar Palmgren
Lentämisen alkeet (The ABC of Flying)
Otava. FIN
Palmgren's second novel is not as intensive as his debut, but still gives an interesting insight into the world of the theatre. The main character, Vesa Arola, is an actor, slightly frustrated and with his best roles behind him. The theatre is wrestling with budget problems, but Vesa gets one more chance and takes it. The ending, in which his competitor for the young, novice actress, Maria, decides not to take his revenge, feels as if it has been tacked on for dramatic effect.
Pirjo Hassinen
Kuninkaanpuisto (King's Park)
Otava. FIN
Pirjo Hassinen is one of Finland's most productive and most fascinating prose-writers, with an uncanny ability to write spookily and sensually at the same time. Her crafting of metaphors is also high-class. In King's Park, two stories are convincingly intertwined - Ari's and Verna's. Ari is disabled (but well placed, which he makes sure he exploits). Verna is a youngish teacher who starts to research the school's history. The moral of the novel: suffering is something that is passed down the generations just as much as physical characteristics and property.
Agneta Pleijel
Mostrarna och andra dikter (The Aunts and other poems)
Norstedts. S
Agneta Pleijel's new collection of poems forms a kind of impressionistic genealogical research, with above all her father in focus, but also finds room for meetings with artistic colleagues and close studies of some of the 17th-century artist Nicolas Poussin's works.
Ulrika Knutson
Kvinnor på gränsen till genombrott (Women on the Verge of a Breakthrough)
Albert Bonniers. S
In the 1920's and -30's, the controversial periodical Tidevarvet (The Epoch) was a forum for Elin Wägner and other writers with a connection to the people's college for women in Fogelstad. With the help of a previously unpublished collection of letters, Ulrika Knutson describes these feminist pioneers' fight for women's rights, and the love relationships between them.
Hanne Ørstavik
Presten (The Pastor)
Oktober. N
When Ørstavik's book was published it rekindled the debate on the use of living people as literary characters. Ørstavik tells the story of a young female pastor forced to reassess where she stands herself and the place of others in her life. At heart, it is an existential novel, exploring the merits of reflection versus action, memories versus critical analysis. Ørstavik could not be more serious, and is apparently unruffled by her proximity to her characters and motives.
Kjartan Fløgstad
Brennbart (Inflammable)
Gyldendal. N
Kjartan Fløgstad very nearly exceeds himself as a polemicist in this uncompromising, brilliantly written if not particularly balanced pamphlet, the principal point of which is that supporters of campaign for the Dano-Norwegian language have bedded down with shady, right-wing bedfellows, and need to explain themselves. It's a good place to start for anyone interested in why Norway's language debate has generated so much heat over the past century and a half. The book's title is, in that sense, telling.
Bjørn Aamodt
Arbeidsstykker og atten tauverk (Workpieces and Eighteen Lengths of Rope)
Gyldendal. N
Aamodt writes here the swansong of industrialism and factory halls. He examines tools and contraptions used by workers, and approaches masculine fraternity and an epoch receding quickly into memory with elegiac sensitivity. Hard labour can also spark tenderness, and the reader will quickly notice Aamodt's hard-coated but soft-centred admiration of labourers' special fellowship. But sentimental? Never! (Or nearly never.)
Lars Saabye Christensen
Oscar Wildes heis (Oscar Wilde's Lift)
Cappelen. N
For most people Lars Saabye Christensen is a novelist in the grand, epic tradition. But he actually is adept in most genres: poetry, plays and not least the short story, as the present collection of a dozen of his latest demonstrates. Their unifying quality is the sense of alienation felt by the main characters, alienation from the world, from each other. And, at the end of the day, from themselves.
Arnaldur Indriðason
Kleifarvatn (The Draining Lake)
Vaka Helgafell. IS
Yet another suspense novel from the leading Icelandic crime writer. This one was nominated for the Icelandic Lliterary Award for fiction, thus paving the way for the acceptance of a new genre in the Icelandic literary community. This time the mystery has its roots in conflicts between Icelandic students in East Germany in the 1960's.
Halldór Guðmundsson
Halldór Laxness - Ævisaga (Halldór Laxness. A Biography)
JPV. IS
The biography of Halldór Laxness, the most important Icelandic writer of the 20th century. Based on the author's research of several years and written in a critical and personal tone. Laxness emerges as a great writer who is prepared to put himself and his ambitions first at all times, even at the expense of those around him.
Jóhanna Kristjánsdóttir
Arabíukonur (Arabian Women)
Mál og menning. IS
A book based on personal and surprisingly intimate interviews with women from four countries in the Arab world. Written with great insight and sympathy as well as a clear mission to eradicate prejudice.
Guðrún Helgadóttir
Öðruvísi fjölskylda (A Different Family)
Vaka-Helgafell. IS
A novel for the young by Iceland's most celebrated writer of children's books. A sequel to her last novel, this one deals with the author's preferred subject, relations within families, but its scope is broader than before, also touching on the effects of globalisation and international politics.
Jens Pauli A. Nolsøe og Kári Jespersen
Havnar Søga I-II (The History of Tórshavn I-II)
Tórshavnar Kommuna. FO
The first part of a comprehensive work on the history of Tórshavn, this publication covers the period from the earliest settlement up until 1866. The two historians describe everything, from archaeological excavations and demographic developments to matters of fortification. The books are abundantly illustrated, frequently with previously unpublished material.
Oddvør Johansen
Sebastians hús (Sebastian's House)
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
This novel tells the story of a house in Tórshavn from the time it was built, in the 1890s, up to the middle of the 1950s, when the narrator moves out of it. The residents' lives and destinies mirror developments in Faroese society. Sebastians hus was awarded first prize in the novel competition organised by Nordens Hus.
Marjun Kjelnæs
Ein farri av kolvetni (A Touch of Carbon Dioxide)
Bókadeild Føroya Lærarafelags. FO
This young author's first publication shows great promise, and she will undoubtedly make a name for herself in Faroese literature. The main characters in her short stories are typically split between frozen social situations and indefinable longings to get away.
Turið Sigurðardóttir
Bókmentasøgur (Literary Histories)
Føroya Fróðskaparfelag. FO
The author is a lecturer at the University of the Faroe Islands, and a skilful literary critic. In this comprehensive selection of articles, she introduces her readers to modern Faroese poetry from the time of its first appearance, through William Heinesen, and on to poets writing at the turn of the 21st century.
Tóroddur Poulsen
Eygnamørk (The Boundary of the Eye)
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
One of the leading lyric poets from the Faroes gives us some ironical pictures of life and death - but above all of the arrival of new life. The world is described from the perspective of the cradle, and we see how everything changes when a new little creaure makes itself felt.
Hans Edvard Nørregård-Nielsen
Dengang i Italien (Once upon a time in Italy)
Gyldendal. DK
This is a large and beautiful volume, where a successful attempt is made to recapture the 19th C. Italian way of life and atmosphere. The aim of the book is to look at the Italy which changed Hans Christian Andersen and helped him to achieve full maturity as a writer. The book is packed with illustrations of the time, as well as photographs taken especially for this publication.
Lars-Henrik Schmidt
Om respekten (On Respect)
Danmarks Pædagogiske Universitets Forlag. DK
The Principal of the Danish Paedagogical University is certainly no yesman, and is often in total disagreement with his staff about means and ends in education for the 7 to 15 year-olds. At times this book is not an easy read, but it is always challenging and thought-provoking. According to the author, there are vital differences between people - and between teachers and pupils.
Bo Tao Michaëlis
Verdenslitteraturens store forførere (Great Seducers in World Literature)
Politiken Bøger. DK
This always eloquent author guides the reader through the history of seduction - from the story of the Garden of Eden, through a large number of major works of European literature, and ending up with Milan Kundera. The review is not only enlightening but also very entertaining.
Espen Haavardsholm
Gutten på passbildet (The Boy in the Passport Picture)
Oktober. N
The author makes a no-holds-barred assessment of himself and his family in this overtly biographical novel about a young boy growing up and breaking free. Haavardsholm combines his fascination with childhood with his equally ardent interest in Norway's 1968 generation. Executed by a master wordsmith, Haavardsholm's personal history has universal validity.
Lars Ove Seljestad
Blind
Cappelen. N
The most remarkable debut of the year. In this novel about Geir Kinsarvik's rise and fall, Seljestad gives the term ?social climbing" fresh meaning. This is macho self-criticism, aggressive social critique and a portrait of industrialism's last gasp. Seljestad's prose is both sprightly and supple, plying elegantly between the fantastic and the realistic.
Ingar Sletten Kolloen
Hamsun, erobreren (Hamsun, the Victor)
Gyldendal. N
Kolloen's biography of Knut Hamsun, the second and final volume of which appears now, is a magisterial achievement. With access to thousands of personal letters and notes, Kolloen has come as close as anybody to Norway's greatest writer. No attempt is made to excuse Hamsun's Nazi commitment, but Kolloen takes the trouble to look for plausible explanations of the giant's fall.
Erlend Loe
Doppler
Cappelen. N
It's hopeless and we're not giving up! Words that summarise a coruscating performance in condensed literary artistry. In this story of an ordinary man's heroic opposition to the demands of ordinary life and the tyranny of cleverness, Loe aims his shots across society's bow. It's his best book since his marvellous debut, Naiv.Super.
Jørgen Sandemose
Flyktningen. Aksel Sandemose - en biografi (The Refugee. Aksel Sandemose - a Biography)
Aschehoug. N
A son writes about his father, but with such relentless honesty that reading it is almost agony. For Jørgen Sandemose his father's books are one long drawn-out self-confession. They are also an exercise in the art of dissembling. Showing no mercy he tears off the layers of deceit, revealing a psychopathic character, a lying, violent individual. A brute of a father, a genius of an artist.
Levi Henriksen
Snø vil falle over snø som har falt (Snow will Fall over Fallen Snow)
Gyldendal. N
Village show-off or dirty realism? Several examinations of Levi Henriksen's style have tried to pin it down, more or less competently. Whatever the opinions of his style, tough, this is the novel that propelled Henriksen into the literary limelight. It is about a man, living in an uncaring rural community, trying to piece his life together. One of the leading literary characters and trusty companion of the main character is an old Volvo Amazon.
Ole Asbjørn Ness
Det er natt (Night Has Fallen)
Gyldendal. N
Ole Asbjørn Ness's first novel is sensational. A sinister, nauseating tale about a man apparently lacking both a sense of reality and moral precepts. On the surface a perfectly ordinary individual. But in short order he brutally murders and attacks several different people. It deals with a very topical question indeed: how tread the line between extreme individualism and common humanity.
Ingvar Ambjørnsen
Innocentia Park
Cappelen. N
A property tycoon suddenly decides to begin a new life. Leaving success behind him, he starts wandering along the summer-heated streets of Hamburg. Slowly, a portrait emerges of a man compelled to make existential choices. Once again, Ingvar Ambjørnsen displays an incomparable grasp of human psychology and observational flair. At the same time he continues to grow as a writer.
Pia Tafdrup
Hengivelsen (Abandonment)
Gyldendal. DK
In the extensive and exclusively lyrical works of Peter Laugesen, Divanord constitutes a systematic, poetic exploration of the relationship between language and reality. As soon as you see the cover, you know that the focus will be on the writing and lettering. These small, condensed poems are not relaxed ?words from a divan" (which is what the Danish title means). ?Divan" is actually an Arabic word for a collection of poetry, and this collection is certainly full of powerful and penetrating texts. ?I'm a tin soldier in a completely different army", says the author. And he's certainly a steadfast one - just like the tin soldier in Hans Christian Andersen.
Peter Laugesen
Divanord (Divan Words)
Borgens Forlag. DK
In the extensive and exclusively lyrical works of Peter Laugesen, Divanord constitutes a systematic, poetic exploration of the relationship between language and reality. As soon as you see the cover, you know that the focus will be on the writing and lettering. These small, condensed poems are not relaxed ?words from a divan" (which is what the Danish title means). ?Divan" is actually an Arabic word for a collection of poetry, and this collection is certainly full of powerful and penetrating texts. ?I'm a tin soldier in a completely different army", says the author. And he's certainly a steadfast one - just like the tin soldier in Hans Christian Andersen.
Morten Søndergaard
At holde havet tilbage med en kost (Keeping the Sea at Bay with a Broom)
Borgens Forlag. DK
The poetic title alone (Keeping Back the Sea with a Broom) is fascinating. It is so easy to picture: an impossible Sisyphean task, underlining the powerlessness of Man when faced with the forces of nature. There are 37 short prose texts in this collection, covering everything from memoirs to dreams and more concrete statements about Man and the world. The themes are wide-ranging, but the melody throughout is subtle, elegant and personal.
Henrik Nordbrandt
Pjaltefisk (Leafy Sea-Dragon)
Gyldendal. DK
The title poem (?Sea Dragon") of Nordbrandt's latest, incredibly beautiful book is symptomatic of his work. He is deeply connected to nature (not least the marine environment), but his sea dragon also represents a magical/mythical element. An archetypical element connected with dreams and poetry. A madwoman gives him a book to copy. But he finds himself unable to do so, and nor can he return the book because he has lost her address. The only thing left is the title - the sea dragon. And that goes a long way in life, love and poetry!
Torsten Ekbom
Den osynliga domstolen (The Invisible Court)
Natur och Kultur. S
?A book about Franz Kafka" is the subtitle of this full-length portrait of one of the 20th century's literary giants. Torsten Ekbom lets bits of Kafka's biography and works alternate in kaleidoscopic form: the relationship with his tyrannical father, his encounter with Jewish mysticism, the headaches, his work with a completely new literary language.
Fredrik Sjöberg
Flugfällan (The Fly Trap)
Nya Doxa. S
The author of this book of essays is a biologist and literary critic, and his observations of summer insects on the island of Runmarö, his reflections on the psychology of collecting et al take the form of lessons in the art of living.
Sverker Sörlin
Världens ordning och Mörkret i människan (The World Order and The Darkness in Man)
Natur och Kultur. S
The August Prize for the best specialist literature went to Sverker Sörlin's 1500-page, two-volume work on the history of European ideas. The first part focuses on the natural sciences, and the second part on man, society and politics.
Lotta Lotass
Tredje flykthastigheten (The Third Speed of Flying)
Albert Bonniers. S
Lotta Lotass's fourth book is a lyrical description of the early days of the Russian space age, with Yuri Gagarin and the other cosmonauts at the centre. Their personal histories in the Soviet society bring to life the universal conflicts between the individual and the collective, between freedom and control.
Bo Green Jensen
Den store epoke (The Great Age)
Rosinante. DK
In the role of cultural commentator, Bo Green Jensen has been influencing Danish literature and film for many years now. But it is seven years since he last published a collection of poetry. Den store epoke (The Great Epoch) is his description of our history, our epoch, achieved by cross-cutting between small, individual stories and major epochal history. The composition of the book is characteristic of Green Jensen: complex and ambitious, consisting of an introduction, six main sections and a coda. Thematically the book ranges from the private problems of a middle-aged man, to satirical speculation about current political issues.
Jens Blendstrup
Gud taler ud (God Speaks His Mind)
Samleren. DK
In this grotesquely funny yet serious novel, God leaves his throne in heaven and comes to live in a detached house in Risskov with a wife and four children. The youngest child is called Jens, and he starts writing a novel about his father. At this level the novel is an ordinary tale of family life in Denmark, including dreams of prosperity and welfare. But at a deeper level the book is a subtle portrayal of a father-son relationship - tender and loving, revealing and without reservation.
Camilla Christensen
Paradis
Samleren. DK
The genres are mixed here, but as a whole Paradis feels like a traditional novel. It is about a young academic called Eva, who has avoided unemployment by joining a project aiming to give certain areas of town a much-needed lift. But both the project and her love life develop in entirely unexpected directions. In a tone of social realism that is also amusing and subtle, has Camilla Christensen given us a portrait of modern paradise - or modern hell?
Arno Kotro
Sanovat sitä rakkaudeksi (They Call It Love) and Musta morsian
(The Black Bride)
LIKE. FIN
Finland's best-selling poet has written the second love-saga of the century. Unlike Märta Tikkanen, who wrote the first one, Kotro doesn't have quite the same depth of experience of life. While this is maybe not Tragedy Lite, it deals not with alcoholism, creative angst, a marriage that has endured for decades, but with a love affair that has gone to pieces. That's not much fun either. Kotro writes well-articulated poetry that everyone can understand - hence the response (20,000 books sold). In part 1 it's the man who pleads his case, while in the less convincing part 2 it's the woman (part 2 is in fact a smart idea, but the poetic voice doesn't carry it off as well).
Ilpo Tiihonen
Largo
WSOY. FIN
Ilpo Tiihonen has, amongst other things, become well-known as a children's author. Clever, rhyming and funny poems that children in Finland have loved for several decades already, But Tiihonen also writes for adults, and in Largo he reveals his entire register: playfulness, word-inventor (not least an expert in Helsinki slang), the cunning rhyme-artist, but he also has an intellectual, philosophical side. Great poetry without straining pretentiousness.
Christian Matras
Yrkingar (Poems)
The Norwegian literary historian, Anne-Kari Skarðhamar, has edited this edition of the great Faroese literary poet's collected original poems and new versions of older poems. Besides factual information about each poem, the book has a review og his life and work.
Jógvan Isaksen
Mellem middelalder og modernitet. Omkring William Heinesens prosa. (Between the Middles Ages and Modernity. On William Heinesen's Prose Works.)
Amaldus. FO
The book supplies the background for the controversies William Heinesen had with Faroese society, especially because he wrote in Danish. The author's prose works are dealt with from his first novel, from 1934, to his last short story collection from 1985.
Kim Simonsen
Kodakmyndir frá sjeytiárunum (Kodak Pictures from the Seventies)
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
The author is known as a sharp commentator in the Faroese public literary debate. But his first collection of poems relies on pathos, honesty and realism. A plea is made for a future aesthetic of beauty.
Morten Blok
At bære væslerne hjem (Bringing Home the Weasels)
Samleren. DK
The author's first book of prose consists of 38 short, condensed flashes of memory from childhood to the present day. Each story is introduced by mentioning a place and a more or less ?encoded" name. In an extremely minimalist style, significant events from the past are recounted, such as his parent's divorce and his grandmother's mental disorder, as well as raw and harsh events in the narrator's current life. It's like leafing through an uncensored family album.
Erling Jepsen
Frygtelig lykkelig (Terribly Happy)
Borgens Forlag. DK
Erling Jepsen has taught us both to cry and to laugh in harmony, and he does it once again in his latest novel - a social-realistic description of manners which makes the reader ?terribly happy" (which is what the Danish title means). A policeman in Copenhagen named Robert Hansen finds it hard to adjust to his environment, and is transferred to Southern Jutland, where life seems to have a calmer and less complicated rhythm. But it is not easy to cope in an ?autonomous" world, where unwritten rules are more important than the law people are prepared to take into their own hands. Robert finds human destiny and skeletons in the cupboard and bogs of Southern Jutland, and is forced to make radical revisions in his personal philosophy.
Erik Wahlström
Den dansande prästen (The Dancing Priest)
Schildts 2004. FIN
Uno Cygnaeus established the elementary school in Finland. It became very avant garde - for example, it emphasised the importance of educating girls. This novel, just as inventive as its main character, hobnobs with the 19th century builders of the nation and its society - a colourful bunch. Finland is part of imperial Russia; one can travel eastwards all the way to Alaska without crossing a border. This is not the stately march of history - the reader is carried along so fast that it makes the stomach lurch.
Pirkko Lindberg
SOS Tuvalu
Schildts 2004. FIN
The package tourist turns a blind eye to problems; the traveller Pirkko Lindberg seeks them out. Exploitation has become a global routine, and the vulnerable oceanic island worlds are the first to feel the effects. Pirkko Lindberg goes to the homes of the people who have to live with the consequences of a lifestyle. She is anything but optimistic for the future, but her account proceeds with level-headed and dignified prose, rooted in the travel-writing of an era when travelling could take its time.
Stella Parland (text) Linda Bondestam (bild)
Delirium. Romanen om en hund (Delirium. The Story of a Dog)
Söderströms 2004. FIN
Here everything flows together with the greatest possible precision. People have strange names, while animals are called something completely matter-of-fact. Too much happens, and far too quickly; pictures and text share the job of keeping the balls in the air. A boundary dispute, a flea circus and a novel about Patience are just a few of the threads in the story, which mixes - and parodies - Lennart Hellsing, Tove Jansson, perhaps the whole of the literary establishment. The target audience is the advanced child. Or the advanced but childish.
Anders Larsson
En liten man i norr (A Little Man in the North)
Schildts 2004. FIN
Anders Larsson's first novel, A Little Man in the North, pushes a role to the limits of absurdity. The author has been there before, as a dramatist and actor. In his hands, ordariness - the little man is an ordinary civil servant with a wife, two children and a car - becomes monstrous, everyday life becomes labyrinthine. The style is just as unpredictable, demanding, sometimes inflated, and goes against all current Finnish literary practice. No-one else serves up a tragi-comedy that is this hardcore.
Mikaela Sundström
Till alla hästar och till vissa flickor (To All Horses and To Certain Girls)
Söderströms 2004. FIN
The author's second novel is a sorrowful tale of collapse, a Chekhovian story with a filling-station café as an indicator of mood. The tale is a farewell to the small-scale agrarian world, disguised as a story of growing up. Anders Bondekrans, a forester, remembers his childhood summers in his grandmother's village, the horsey girls and the trotting-horse Kuningatar (The Queen). As in Chekhov, the tale serves no moral purpose, but instead generates strong sympathy.
Tor Bomann-Larsen
Folket, Haakon og Maud II (The People, Haakon and Maud II)
Cappelen. N
Tor Bomann-Larsen continues his brilliantly told story of the modern Norwegian monarchy, and the dynastic and political implications its establishment gave rise to. On publication it caused a media fracas because Bomann-Larsen questioned whether the late King Olav was in fact King Haakon's biological offspring. But there are countless other jewels to admire in the literary and historical tour de force.
Lars Ramslie
Uglybugly
Oktober. N
Lars Ramslie's writing is currently developing quicker than greased lightening. In his latest novel he gives us the story of Siamese twins Earl and Betty, and how they live their life as travelling circus attractions. Not only does Ramslie use the story to lash out against social mores, he performs an ambitious - in literary terms - study of what it means to be a social outcast.
Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Røtter og føtter. Identitet i en omskiftelig tid (Roots and Boots. Identity in a Mutable Age)
Aschehoug. N
The author is one of Norway's most popular academics and a virtuoso communicator. In these essays he examines our ability to pick and choose an identity of our liking, setting personal freedom against the constraints of collective safeguards.
Riitta Jalonen (text) - Kristiina Louhi
Tyttö ja naakkapuu (The Girl and the Jackdaws)
Tammi. FIN
A little girl stands day-dreaming by some trees outside a railway station, while her mother is inside buying tickets. The girl's train of thought goes to her father, who has recently died, to school, to the old lady who lives in the apartment beneath theirs. Children are ?primitive people" - here, everything is inspired, not least the trees the girl is standing under and the birds in the treetops. Interior monologues are not just for novels in world literature, they work just as well in children's books. Kristiina Louhi's illustrations generate the same kind of humour and seriousness as Jalonen's text. Winner of the Finlandia Junior Literature Prize.
Kari Hotakainen
Satukirja (The Saga Book)
WSOY. FIN
Kari Hotakainen drenches the children with wild connections, from a Teboil filling station to a bream to a toaster in five seconds. Things move fast in these sagas - a life is covered on two pages, two lives on three. The ?adult author" Hotakainen's absurdism could have been made for producing sagas. For children just as much as for adults - great literature in a small format, with Priit Pärn's slyly funny illustrations.
Sindri Freysson
Flóttinn (The Escape)
JPV. IS
A historical novel portraying the escape of a young German stationed in Iceland under British occupation of the country in World War II. A convincing historical and psychological study.
Huldar Breiðfjörð
Múrinn í Kína (The Great Wall of China)
Bjartur. IS
A very personal travel account written by a young writer who travels along the Great Wall of China in search of himself. An extremely candid and sincere account in which the author not only faces his own prejudices but also loneliness and despair.
Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir
Karítas án titils (Karitas: Untitled)
Mál og menning. IS
A dramatic and at times melodramatic historical novel portraying the struggles of a woman, in Iceland around the turn of the 20th century, in her search for love and personal as well as artistic freedom. The novel is based on the author's research into the fate of the first generation of women artists in Iceland.
Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl
Hugsjónadruslan. (The Ideological Slut)
Mál og menning. IS
The debut of a young novelist. Inspired by the american beat poets, the protagonist and the author's alter ego, travels to Copenhagen in search of new experiences through, sex , drink, tuberculosis, and curiously enough, old-fashioned love.
Svend Åge Madsen
Levemåder (Levemåder)
Gyldendal. DK
Nobody masters the demanding composition and plot of the novel quite like Madsen. In particular, he is the master of fictional design. This new novel starts with a dramatic prologue. We find ourselves in a village church in Jutland - one of the communicants is struck down by cramp while walking down the aisle after being given a poisoned communion wafer. We are then presented with six detective stories, all focusing on who killed Gordon Bimpel. We travel far and wide - from Århus to Venice and from heaven to earth. But at the heart of the novel there is only one question - the inner issue of responsibility and punishment.
Jökull Valsson
Börnin í Húmdölum (Children in the Valley of Shadows)
Bjartur. IS
A full-blooded horror fantasy inspired by Stephen King as well as the Swedish children's classic Alfie Atkins. Yet another popular literary genre has now entered the Icelandic scene.
Guðbergur Bergsson
Lömuðu kennslukonurnar (The Paralysed School Mistresses)
JPV. IS
A new novel from one of Iceland's most celebrated novelists. Guðbergur Bergsson is as provocative as ever. A curious mixture of erotica and aesthetic contemplations as well as a poke at the Icelandic obsession for narratives and storytelling.
Jens Christian Grøndahl
Piazza Bucarest
Gyldendal. DK
Grøndahl's novel is about the relationship between large and small stories. Or the encounter between the individual and politics and power. The action takes place shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, with links leading back to the Vietnam War. A young American named Scott marries a slightly older Danish woman to escape the draft. Later - after a divorce - he meets a young Romanian woman called Elena during the Ceausescu regime. She deserts her child to gain her freedom. Piazza Bucarest is a love story, a political novel about the price of freedom, and a discussion of the role of art.
Lene Henningsen
Bølgen tegner præcist (The Wave Draws Accurately)
Lindhardt og Ringhof. DK
This book starts with a conversation between ?the poet" Lene Henningsen and ?the philosopher" Villy Sørensen, and the entire collection of short prose texts develops in the interface between poetry and philosophy. The form is taut and lapidary, bordering on the sketchy, but maintained throughout by delicate images and expressions. But the book is not just lyrical. It also contains humour, existential exploration and political speculation.
Iben Claces
Akikos ammehjerne (Kikos' Breast-feeding Brain)
Lindhardt og Ringhof. DK
This is the author's first work of prose. The title seems cryptic (Akiko's Nursing Brain), but indicates the book's deliberately narrow frame of action and time. We follow a young woman named Akiko at a decisive stage of her life: the period before, during and after giving birth. But while we observe the biological process involved, we are also granted access to Akiko's thoughts and emotions via a condensed lyrical story about the miracle of life itself.
Christian Yde Frostholm
Afrevne ord (Torn Off Words)
Borgens Forlag. DK
The title of this book (Detached Words) reflects its content and form precisely. Everything seems deliberately fragmented, amputated and detached. We are led through the random spaces of the post-modern urban environment, and experience reality in the form of a gigantic collage of signs, posters, fragments of conversations and sensory impressions. The form of the book is correspondingly minimalist, like a snapshot. It contains short statements of an almost aphoristic nature. Precise registrations of post-modern life.
Tumppi Varonen-Sannaliina Nikula
Poika joka tahtoo lentää (The Boy Who Wants to Fly)
Tammi. FIN
Tumppi Varonen, drummer in one of Finland's greatest punk bands of all time (Pelle Miljoona & NUS), has told the novel of his life to the editor, Sannaliina Nikula. We get a typical rock life, lots of alcohol, tablet abuse, travelling and a family life that doesn't quite succeed for the reasons just described. Textually not star-quality, but the tale contains warmth, and works both as a good picture of the period and as documentation of the Finnish rock world as seen from the inside.
Ingrid Elam
Min obetydliga beundran (My Insignificant Admiration)
Norstedts. S
„Martina von Schwerin and the birth of the modern reader" is the subtitle of Ingrid Elam's study of one of the most important but least-known personalities in 19th-century Swedish culture. In the history of literature, she is a footnote in the chapter on Tegnér. The biography of his gifted pen-friend becomes a historical essay on the entry of women into the cultural world.
Katarina Frostenson
Karkas
W&W. S
Mrs Frostenson's new collection of poems builds five suites round the self and the world, landscape and memory, the word and love and the course of language. The artist Håkan Rehnberg did the cover and the painting inside the jacket.
Eva Ström
Rött vill till rött (Red Seeks Red)
Albert Bonniers. S
A mother's death is the central motif of Eva Ström's new collection of poems, following the prize-winning „Revbensstäderna" (?The Rib Towns"). But the theme of sorrow is combined in the poems with life-affirming warmth, light and love.
Håkan Bravinger
Och öser sin tystnad över oss (And Pours His Silence Over Us)
W&W. S
Håkan Bravinger's second collection of poems deals with the vacuum that arises after the death of someone close. In the loss of his father, there is also a confrontation with sexuality and a dawning love.
Elsa Grave
Poems
Norstedts. S
In this selection, Ingvar Holm takes a cross-section through one of post-war Sweden's foremost lyrical bodies of work. With her combination of rage and humour, Elsa Grave (1918-2003) inspired successors such as Sonja Åkesson and Kristina Lugn.
Birgitta Stenberg
Alla vilda (All Wild)
Norstedts. S
The penultimate part of the autobiographical suite of novels that started with ?Kärlek i Europa" (?Love in Europe", 1981) is a vivid description of Majorca in the 1950's, with its cosmopolitan circle of artists, authors, gays and lesbians.
Ida Börjel
Sond (Probe)
OEI Editör. S
The most-praised débutant of 2004 was Ida Börjel, who won both the Borås Tidning Prize for Débutants and the Katapult Prize. The jury's explanatory statement for the latter prize included the following: ?Probe questions both reading and writing, and shows new, liberating ways to look at and think about literature."
Rune Palm
Vikingarnas språk (The Language of the Vikings)
Norstedts. S
In this comprehensive work, the runologist Rune Palm gives a sterling introduction to the language and history of the Vikings, as well as solid guidance in how to decipher and interpret runic inscriptions.
Tomas Andersson och Stefan Foconi
Gubben i taket (The Old Man on the Ceiling)
Tranan. S
„Some Irans" is the subtitle of this literary travelogue which carries on the tradition of predecessors Willy Kyrklund and Sven Delblanc. The format is likened to a Persian carpet and reflects the complex reality of the contemporary Islamic republic.
Per Hagman
Att komma hem ska vara en schlager (Coming Home Should Be a Hit)
Albert Bonniers. S
After the collection of short stories ?Skugglegender" (?Shadow Legends", 2000), which became Hagman's literary breakthrough, he returned with an equally critically acclaimed autobiographical contemporary novel about an author who comes ?home" and tries to get his rootless life in order.
Ralf Andtbacka
En fisk som man kan se (A Fish One Can See)
Söderströms 2004. FIN
Ralf Andtbacka's fourth collection of poems throws poetic inhibitions overboard and in their place hauls up a varied selection in his trawl. The material has been fished out of technical magazines from his boyhood, chanced upon at a flea market in his home town of Vasa, just as much as it has been invented according to philosophical or physical principles where language and the sounds of language come into being. The poem moves as if through a sea that contains everything that affects us, but also maintains a certain intellectual distance which sometimes manifests itself as a discreet humour.
Sabine Forsblom
Maskrosguden (The Dandelion God)
Söderströms 2004. FIN
In this powerful first novel, the reader is sucked into a proletarian world in and around a small Finnish town. Finland-Swedish literature has visited this setting before, of course, but now it is at centre stage. The perspective is primarily that of a small girl; nothing eludes her, and she allows the characters in the tale to take up the story indiscriminately. The tale reaches boiling point in the conflict between the characters' intractable urge to get on and their devastating feelings of shame about their origins.
Klaus Rifbjerg
Pap (Cardboard)
Gyldendal. DK
The title poem Pap (Cardboard) is reminiscent of some of Rifbjerg's earliest poems: the language twists and turns, with the world appearing on the reverse side. But in the other poems in this new collection Rifbjerg is audacious enough to focus closely on well-known Danes of the modern era - which is something he has done often before. For instance, he deals critically with political figures such as Bertel Haarder, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Søren Krarup, Brian Mikkelsen and many others. Claus the Great seems to be interested in getting his man - but if you ask me, it's the ball he's after.
| 
