Book reviews

Merete Mazzarella Den goda beröringen. Om kropp, hälsa, vård och litteratur (The Right Touch. About Health, Care and Literature)
Henry Parland Sönder (om framkallning av Veloxpapper) (In Pieces: About the Development of Velox Paper)
Katarina Gäddnäs (text), Gabrielle Nordlund (foto) Ytterst. Kökar mitt i havet (Extreme. Kökar in the middle of the sea)
Lars Huldén Utförlig beskrivning av en bärplockares väg. Dikter från 50 år. (Comprehensive description of a berry-picker's way. Poems from 50 years.)
Sture Lindholm Röd terror - vit galenskap. Det förträngda kriget i Västnyland (Red Terror - White Madness. The repressed war in West Nyland)
Agneta Enckell innanför/utanför. ((1+) 3 x 13 + (1+) 13) (eller 4 olika sätt att närma sig ett landskap -) inside/outside. ((1+) 3 x 13 + (1+) 13) (or 4 different ways to approach a landscape -)
Henrika Ringbom Sonjas berättelse (Sonja's Tale)
Marianne Backlén Bastionerna (The Bastions)
Lars Saabye Christensen og Bård Løken Norske omveier - i blues og bilder(Norwegian Byways - In Blues and Pictures)
Ottar Grepstad Viljen til språk. Ei nynorsk kulturhistorie (Willing a Tongue - A cultural history of Nynorsk)
Francis Sejersted Sosialdemokratiets tidsalder (The Age of Social Democracy)
Juha Itkonen Anna minun rakastaa enemmän (Låt mig älska mer) (Let Me Love More)
Maria Peura Valon reunalla (Vid ljusets kant) (At the Edge of Light)
Riitta Jalonen Kuvittele itsellesi mies (Tänk fram en man åt dig) (Imagine a Husband for Yourself)
Tuomas Vimma Toinen (Tuomas Vimma den andre) (Tuomas Vimma the Second)
Anna-Leena Härkönen Loppuunkäsitelty (Slutbehandlat) (Done Deal)
Jyrki Kiiskinen Jäniksen ja vangin suuri matka (Harens och fångens stora resa)(The Hare and the Prisoner's Great Journey)
Dagny Joensen Hvirlan (Hvirvelvinden) («The Whirlwind»)
Jóanes Nielsen Glansbílætasamlararnir (Glansbilledsamlerne) («Scrapbook Collector»)
Vida Højgaard Mørk (Grænser) («Out of Bounds»)
Jógvan Isaksen Krossmessa (Korsmesse) («Mass of the Holy Cross»)
Elias Askham Messias II
OutsiderMAGAZIN 2/3 2006 www.outisdermagazin.com. FO
Guðjón Friðriksson Ég elska þig stormur (Jeg elsker dig storm)
Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir Yosoy. Af líkamslistum og hugarvíli í hryllingsleikhúsinu við Álafoss
Hallgrímur Helgason Windland
Hermann Stefánsson Signals
Hugleikur Dagsson Avoid Us
Jón Kalman Stefánsson Sommerlight and Then the Night Falls
Sjón The splinter from Argo
Steinunn Sigurðardóttir Sunshine Horse
Sölvi Björn Sigurðsson The Diabolical Comedy
Tove Appelgren og Halldór Baldursson Animals
Alexandur Kristiansen Bádumegin blátt («On Both Sides of Blue»)
Eira Stenberg Oven takana (Behind the Door)
Ragnar Kvam jr. Thor Heyerdahl - mannen og havet (Thor Heyerdahl - The Man and the Sea)
Jo Nesbø Frelseren (Saviour)
Roy Jacobsen (Lumberjacks)
Frode Grytten Flytande bjørn (Floating Bear)
Odd Karsten Tveit Krig og diplomati. Oslo - Jerusalem 1978-96 (War and Diplomacy. Oslo-Jerusalem 1978-96)
Morten Strøksnes Automobil. Gjennom Europas bakgård (Automobile. Through Europe's Back Yard)
Thure Erik Lund Uranophilia
May-Irene Aasen m.fl. Gutta - på veien med Jokke og Valentinern (The Boys - On the Road with Jokke and the Valentines)
Tom Egeland Ulvenatten (Night of the Wolves)
Rolf E. Stenersen Edvard Munch. Nærbilde av et geni (Edvard Munch. Close up of a Genius)
Sigmund Løvåsen Brakk (Stagnant)
Georg Johannesen Eksil (Exile)
Ingrid Elam My Insignificant Admiration
Ulf Peter Hallberg Grand Tour
Kerstin Norborg Missed abortion
Stefan Jonsson Three revolutions
Mats Kolmisoppi The Hoverers
Nina Burton The new city of women n
Erik Wijk Everything has happened
Lina Einhorn Nina's Journey
Klas Östergren Gangsters
Eva Adolfsson Transformation
Elise Ingvarsson Depends bulkily on
Martin Högström Transfutura
Kristian Lundberg Job
Peter Adolphsen Machine
Jesper Wung Sung Lidt berømt, meget berygtet («Slightly Famous, Very Infamous») t
Morten Søndergaard Et skridt i den rigtige retning («A Step in the Right Direction»)
Simon Grotrian Melatonin
Carsten René Nielsen Enogfyrre dyr («Forty-one Animals»)
Peter Høeg Den stille pige («The Quiet Girl»)
Hanne Vibeke Holst Kongemordet («Regicide»)
Dorrit Willlumsen Den dag jeg blev Honey Hotwing («The Day I Became Honey Hotwing»)
Pablo Henrik Llambías Et ukendt barn («An Unknown Child»)
Ib Michael Grill
Søren K. Lauridsen Det tredje billede («The Third Picture»)
Mette Thomsen Vindæg/Abortus Inhibitus («Unfertilized Eggs»)
Fredrik Strage Fans
Carola Hansson The Master's Dream
Steen Bach Christensen Hvide skygger («White Shadows»)
Dan Turèll Dan Turèll og Sølvstjernerne vender tilbage («The Return of Dan Turèll and the Silver Stars») (CD)

Merete Mazzarella
Den goda beröringen. Om kropp, hälsa, vård och litteratur (The Right Touch. About Health, Care and Literature)
Söderströms. FIN
We are connected to the world through our bodies. If we forget this, then literature can actually serve as a reminder. The author, critic, debater and professor of literature, Merete Mazzarella, writes about illness, health and quality of life in language that cuts right through the specialists' jargon. Care today has to alleviate a sick person's symptoms as quickly and cheaply as possible. But illness, aging, suffering and death are unavoidable, complex processes. Mazzarella illustrates this using well-chosen examples from literature.

Henry Parland
Sönder (om framkallning av Veloxpapper) (In Pieces: About the Development of Velox Paper)
Svenska Litteratursällskapet. FIN
Sönder is the most cherished prose classic of Finland-Swedish modernism, gruffly and expressively written in «emigrant Swedish» by a young man who primarily spoke more Continental languages. Sönder has got a new lease of life, perhaps exactly because Swedish - including the literary variety - has again landed in a polyglot milieu. This has been brought to the fore not least in so-called immigrant novels. But Sönder is also an illusion-free and feverish love-story for any era, from 1932 when it was first published, through to today.

Katarina Gäddnäs (text), Gabrielle Nordlund (foto)
Ytterst. Kökar mitt i havet (Extreme. Kökar in the middle of the sea)
Schildts. FIN
Since the description of common life died as a literary genre, the countryside is depicted by means of the camera. Often it is the summer-guest's view that defines the landscape of the archipelago. Here, the local perspective is won back emphatically. Ytterst describes Kökar and its inhabitants - through history and in the present - on their own terms. The pictures are abundantly beautiful, but Ytterst is no ingratiating landscape pornography to leaf through at home on the settee. It is an extremely social book.

Lars Huldén
Utförlig beskrivning av en bärplockares väg. Dikter från 50 år. (Comprehensive description of a berry-picker's way. Poems from 50 years.)
Schildts. FIN
Lars Huldén has published poems since the 50s, in total over thirty collections of poems about love, death, society, the summer, Runeberg, Bellman and much more, for reading at home, the stage and grand academic occasions. The title alludes to a crooked path, portrays poetry as a comfortable occupation. But an assiduous professor of languages is in unerring control when it comes to style. The things he worked with in his early poetry - and has always worked with - humour, irony, dialect, are now becoming big in poetry in Finland, not least in Finnish.

Sture Lindholm
Röd terror - vit galenskap. Det förträngda kriget i Västnyland (Red Terror - White Madness. The repressed war in West Nyland)
Söderströms. FIN
Only in recent years have people started to investigate the civil war of 1918 systematically, scientifically and in literature. To find out what are the mechanisms that unleash the hell that is called a civil war, it is not enough to resort to sweeping theories. One must also know - and dare to see - what really happened. The author has studied events and attitudes at a local level, and it is exactly this that helps him to cast light over what is painful on a general level too.

Agneta Enckell
innanför/utanför. ((1+) 3 x 13 + (1+) 13)
(eller 4 olika sätt att närma sig ett landskap -)
inside/outside. ((1+) 3 x 13 + (1+) 13)
(or 4 different ways to approach a landscape -)
Söderströms. FIN
Agneta Enckell's collections of poetry are a kind of invitation to journeys of exploration. But which route the reading takes depends on the reader. Her new book has a concrete, even playful structure that feels universal, like mathematics. Being able to dig one's way into it, and as it were be touched by the human grammar, is a tremendous experience. Enckell works with language somewhat like Paul Celan; it is a tool that can help us to maintain our humanity.

Henrika Ringbom
Sonjas berättelse (Sonja's Tale)
Söderströms. FIN
Henrika Ringbom's second novel is a moral thriller - and a version of   history. At least one person is dead, perhaps two. Were they murdered or not« Sonja's Tale challenges the thriller, for here nothing much can be explained by normal submission of evidence. Instead, it becomes an unsettling tale of dependence and vulnerability, about choice and responsibility and guilt. A subject that in the tabloids would have bold, unambiguous headlines is treated here in a diametrically opposed way: low-key and reflectively.

Marianne Backlén
Bastionerna (The Bastions)
Schildts. FIN
Racism is a theme that has received scant attention in Finnish literature. But Marianne Backlén's writing has always revolved around meetings and clashes of cultures, around tolerance and overt or concealed prejudice. The big questions are always represented by individual fates, but in Backlén ´ s works seldom like in this book: starting from a murder. But the novel deals less with the individual case and more with structures, with the social architecture that allows xenophobia to take up residence.

Lars Saabye Christensen og Bård Løken
Norske omveier - i blues og bilder (Norwegian Byways - In Blues and Pictures)
Orion. N
In an uncommonly successful collaboration, writer Lars Saabye Christensen teams up with photographer Bård Løken to investigate corners of Norway where the blues are lived every day. A civilized book, one which manages - just - to offset the raw with the deliciously tempting - and find beauty in ugliness. It sounds just how the blues like to sound.

Ottar Grepstad
Viljen til språk. Ei nynorsk kulturhistorie (Willing a Tongue - A cultural history of Nynorsk)
Det Norske Samlaget. N
A cultural history of Nynorsk, this is also Norwegian popular history. While tracing the major developments Ottar Grepstad leaves room for anecdotes and accounts of the women and men without whose combined and individual efforts Norway would probably never have become a bilingual nation, a country with two living languages.

Francis Sejersted
Sosialdemokratiets tidsalder (The Age of Social Democracy)
Pax. N
To mark the centenary of Norway's independence from Sweden in 1905, historian Francis Sejersted penned this comparative history of the two countries' social democracies. Invigorating history writing at its best.

Juha Itkonen
Anna minun rakastaa enemmän (Let Me Love More)
Teos. FIN
Juha Itkonen's second novel has Finland's success in rock music in recent years as a sort of background. The soloist Suvi Vaahtera makes an international career for herself as Summer Maple (which would have been absurd ten years ago), until she disappears in Africa. It's her ex, the guitarist Antti, who is the narrator of the novel, and he narrates it well. Relationships and rock: without reading the blurb we know that Juha Itkonen himself has played in a band - our ears tell us.

Maria Peura
Valon reunalla (At the Edge of Light)
Teos. FIN
As in her debut novel (On rakkautes ääretön, Endless is Your Love), Maria Peura sticks to dark tones. As in her debut, the language is brilliant. Northern Finnish communities are tough places; Ristiina's boyfriend Kari is not good enough for her (middle-class) parents, but the longing for love and sex outweigh her parents' wishes. Their class-based perspective on life   feels narrow and negative - the tale derives its strength from it.

Riitta Jalonen
Kuvittele itsellesi mies (Imagine a Husband for Yourself)
Tammi. FIN
A love-triangle like so many others, but somehow so unlike them. A husband cheats on his wife with another woman. Riitta Jalonen does not use screams and noisy crying to bring the drama to life, but sorrowful reflection from the betrayed wife - and her road towards a faltering feeling for life. The mother's telephone conversations with her daughters, who have already moved away from home, work as a kind of warning sign for the slippery slope. Jalonen writes disturbingly, skilfully and with a feeling for life's absurd humour.

Tuomas Vimma Toinen (Tuomas Vimma the Second)
Otava. FIN
The point about Vimma is the language. Ultratrendy Helsinki slang to the nth degree, and we certainly learn new words. But the tale doesn't keep up the same pace; there is drink, some drugs, a few youths drifting through life. The undertone is high-spirited - fast-paced - and reveals Vimma as a very conventional storyteller. Excellent as a lexicon, otherwise surprisingly dull.

Anna-Leena Härkönen
Loppuunkäsitelty (Done Deal)
Otava. FIN
Suicide - nothing unusual in Finland, which comes after Hungary and Denmark at the top of the statistical table. Härkönen's book digs in deep, behind the statistics: why did it happen, how was it possible, what did I say when she made her last phone-call« Feelings of guilt are paired with hopelessness, for there are no answers (except possibly with regard to the telephone call), but they have to be asked anyway - one's own life goes on, after all. Härkönen writes from her own experience, and that gives the text strength. The book's very existence constitutes hope.

Jyrki Kiiskinen
Jäniksen ja vangin suuri matka (The Hare and the Prisoner's Great Journey)
Tammi. FIN
A raccoon with rings round its eyes, which (along with the stripy coat) have given him the nickname of the Prisoner, chases around together with a hare. The tone is warm, perhaps even unnecessarily warm. What makes the book interesting is Kiiskinen's ability to graft modern phenomena onto a tale that otherwise builds on the traditional. Animals that are confronted by environmentalists and female presidents are not exactly things we have encountered before.

Dagny Joensen
Hvirlan («The Whirlwind»)
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
The novel describes forms of repression which are typical of Faroese society, through three women from different generations.

Jóanes Nielsen
Glansbílætasamlararnir («Scrapbook Collector»)  
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
This outspoken author very frankly describes the lives of five pupils from a religious private school in Tórshavn. They are all classmates, and all of   them die young. The novel has been one of the most widely read on the Faroes in recent years.

Vida Højgaard
Mørk («Out of Bounds»)
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
Liv, the young female protagonist in this novel, has grown up in a small Faroese village. Intelligent and sensitive, she becomes acquainted with the darker sides of life at an early age. All in all, the novel gives a good description of childhood and upbringing under conditions pertaining to a specific Faroese milieu.   

Jógvan Isaksen
Krossmessa («Mass of the Holy Cross»)
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
The third crime novel about Hannis Martinsson deals with the dramatic conflicts between whalers and environmental protest movements. Activists die, and Faroese society comes under a lot of pressure from the outside world. This novel was the book that sold best on the Faroes in 2005.

Elias Askham
Messias II
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
Young Adam Gudmundsson calls himself Ikaros D. His sister has committed suicide, and he is possessed by an irresistible obsession to kill his father. A Faroese novel with a difference.

OutsiderMAGAZIN 2/3 2006
www.outisdermagazin.com. FO
Kim Simonsen, a writer and cultural debater, is the driving force behind this periodical, which is an unusual one in the Faroese context. With Nordic literature 2000-2006 as their main feature, the editors deal with Faroese literature, and with literature from elsewhere, in harmonious interplay. What is endemic to the Faroe Islands is rejected - but a fruitful dialogue is cultivated.

Guðjón Friðriksson
Ég elska þig stormur
Mál og menning. IS
A new biography of Hannes Hafstein, Iceland's first minister and one of the major figures of Icelandic poetry. This biography, written by one of Iceland's most popular historians is more down to earth than earlier writings about his life.

Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir
Yosoy. Body Arts and Bewilderment in the Álafoss Horror Theatre
Mál og menning. IS
In an abandonded factory just outside Reykjavík the mysterious Guðrún runs a circus where the artist all defy the laws of nature in one way or another. When the genetic scientist Ólafur is sent by a mysterious international organisation to study the operation he is faced with fundamental questions regarding life and death; mind and matter.

Hallgrímur Helgason
Windland
Mál og menning. IS
Modern culture seen through the eyes of Böddi a teacher of German literature and philosophy in an Icelandic grammar school. Böddi is an inspired looser and although his critique often rings true and his love for classic culture is genuine, he is doomed to fail. A critical novel, but perhaps first and foremost a novel about the difficulties in getting a critique of modernity across.

Hermann Stefánsson
Signals
Bjartur. IS
A character from the authors earlier novel, the writer Guðjón Ólafsson, returns. While he travels to Prague and writes his dystopic novel about a feature empire of onany, his wife, the fair Helena begins an affair with his brother in-law. The two stories are woven together with other texts in a metatextual novel of high quality.

Hugleikur Dagsson
Avoid Us
JPV. IS
A compilation of the authors three comic books: Love us, Kill us and Fuck us in one volume. Dagsson's comics are more vulgar and subversive than most, in a deliberetely naïve style he portrays the worst sides of modern life as we know it.

Jón Kalman Stefánsson
Sommerlight and Then the Night Falls
Bjartur. IS
Interwoven short stories from a small village in Iceland in which the village's collective voice tells the stories of the villagers fate, their dealings with love and death. The style moves effortlessly from the ironic to the sentimental, from the prosaic to the poetic.

Sjón
The splinter from Argo
Bjartur. IS
Sjón's contribution to an international project where well known writers retell ancient myths. In this novel Sjón mixes the myth of Jason and the Argonauts with an eccentric Icelandic travel narrative from the last century.

Steinunn Sigurðardóttir
Sunshine Horse
Mál og menning. IS
A fresh variation on a theme known from the authors earlier works. This short novel deals with the fate of a women who as let love slip from her grasp. Simultanously hovever she tells the story af an unusually harsh childhood with parents who were able to love every child but their own.

Sölvi Björn Sigurðsson
The Diabolical Comedy
Mál og menning. IS
A postmodern twist on the Divine Comedy. The poem describes a poetic journey through the night life of Reykjavík. The poet Mussju travels with Dante through the darker sides of town and accounts for their escapades in traditional verse.

Tove Appelgren og Halldór Baldursson
Animals
Mál og menning. IS
A proof that illustrated books are not just for the smallest of children. Animals is the result of cooperation between an Icelandic illustrator and a Finnish writer. The tales and illustrations are humorous and bolder than most children's books.

Alexandur Kristiansen
Bádumegin blátt («On Both Sides of Blue»)
Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins. FO
Kristiansen has a comprehensive insight into all kinds of poetry, and he produces some of the very best poems in Faroese literature. This collection has everything, from love poems to a «cantata» to his home town.

Eira Stenberg
Oven takana (Behind the Door)
Tammi. FIN
For the last few years there has been a house in Benin (Africa) for Finnish artists. It is now starting to produce results in art too. Stenberg's Africa is a tense love-story between white and black. A study in western feelings of guilt, but occasionally tainted with undigested cultural impressions and recapitulations of history. Close to the skin, but not quite under it.

Ragnar Kvam jr.
Thor Heyerdahl - mannen og havet (Thor Heyerdahl - The Man and the Sea)
Gyldendal. N
Gripping biography of one of Norway's most iconic figures. Scientist and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl - the man with nine lives. The boy with a fear of water who grew to conquer the Pacific, the ultra-individualist who always relied on help from others, the pacifist who became a war hero. And a psychological enigma.

Jo Nesbø
Frelseren (Saviour)
Aschehoug. N
Jo Nesbø consolidates his place as one of Norway's best storytellers with this whodunit. Saviour, epic in proportions and consummately executed, unravels a violent conspiracy seasoned with universal themes like crime and punishment, remorse and redemption, biblical dogma, perversions and abuse, lies and devilry. Nesbø is a writer with a talent for composition and nail-biting suspense.

Roy Jacobsen
Hoggerne (Lumberjacks)
Cappelen. N
Roy Jacobsen's latest novel is abrupt, uncanny and mysterious. And extremely well written. Set in the Finnish-Russian Winter War of 1939, it is a timeless study of the victory of a people's sense of place - underpinned in equal measure by deep resignation and controlled fury. There is a large helping of masculine ruggedness in this book, a convincing tale of how weakness in others serves to consolidate strength in oneself.

Frode Grytten
Flytande bjørn (Floating Bear)
Det Norske Samlaget. N
Frode Grytten's novel was hailed as the best crime novel of 2005. But it is as much a caustic foray into social criticism, a novel about the assassination of an entire town. As Bruce Springsteen's album Nebraska plays along in the background, the novel explores the archetypical themes of fratricidal enmity, jealousy and black depression. Captivating and devastating at the same time.

Odd Karsten Tveit
Krig og diplomati. Oslo - Jerusalem 1978-96 (War and Diplomacy. Oslo-Jerusalem 1978-96)
Aschehoug. N
Based on solid research, this is riveting account of Norway's role in the Palestine conflict. As exciting as a crime novel, the author doesn't mince his words when it comes to characterizing the efforts of the people involved, in Norway and the Middle East, without this detracting from the book's value as an unparalleled fount of information.

Morten Strøksnes
Automobil. Gjennom Europas bakgård (Automobile. Through Europe's Back Yard)
Kagge. N
Setting off from Oslo, Morten Strøksnes takes the reader along as he drives to the Baltic states, White Russia, the Ukraine, Moldavia, Romania, Bulgaria and finally Istanbul. This travelogue combines essayistic qualities with humour, attesting at the same time to the remarkable knowledge of its author. It also explores how the car revolutionized modern living along with our perception of humanity.

Thure Erik Lund
Uranophilia
Aschehoug. N
A critique of civilization, Uranophilia is at once metaphysical, speculative and highly original. It concludes Thure Erik Lund's four-volume novel. This is modern fiction in a class of its own, where the writer freely and wantonly mixes high and low styles and themes. Ranging from grey social realism to unfettered fantasy, it is a demanding but rewarding exploration of fiction's inherent possibilities.

May-Irene Aasen m.fl.
Gutta - på veien med Jokke og Valentinerne (The Boys - On the Road with Jokke and the Valentines)
Damm. N
Joachim Nielsen was a rock star who died of an overdose aged thirty-six. He was also one of the most acute observers of ordinary life, as his raw, sensitive verses testify. This is the story of Jokke and his group during their years of prominence, with unique photos supplied by May-Irene Aasen, herself a member of the group and Jokke's partner for many years. The book is also a window on the past, on a musical era long since faded into history.

Tom Egeland
Ulvenatten (Night of the Wolves)
Aschehoug. N
Another whodunit, this one a thriller of international calibre and stature. When Chechnyan terrorists target a televised debate and take the participants hostage, we're in for a night of anguish. For the nine hours it takes to resolve the situation, the police, media and hostages come face to face with impossible questions in terrifying circumstances. Egeland maintains control as the drama moves towards its thrilling conclusion.

Rolf E. Stenersen
Edvard Munch. Nærbilde av et geni (Edvard Munch. Close up of a Genius)
Sem og Stenersen. N
This new edition marks the sixtieth anniversary of one of the most entertaining and disarmingly frank artist biographies in Norwegian publishing history. On its first publication in Norway, just after WWII, it heralded a new approach to biography. At the centre is Munch's personality rather than his work, and Rolf E. Stenersen, art collector and businessman, is not afraid to lace his account with his own psychological and impressionistic assessments of the man and his legacy. Freely after Freud.

Sigmund Løvåsen
Brakk (Stagnant)
Det Norske Samlaget. N
Ambitiously mingling grubby village realism with psychological insight, Sigmund Løvåsen perpetuates and renews the particularly Norwegian literary genre of place. The story of Geir's struggle to survive as a sheep farmer while having to deal with the loss of his father is written in a bare, tactile style. It is a novel which stinks. Of sheep, woodlands and sweat.

Georg Johannesen
Eksil (Exile)
Cappelen. N
Georg Johannesen, who died last Christmas Eve, was one of Norway's most respected and original thinkers. This book came out just before his death. Dispensing liberally of his wide-ranging knowledge, Johannesen explores expatriation and character formation, and can't resist the odd criticism of contemporary life in Norway. He is rarely easy to read, but always worth the effort.

Ingrid Elam
My Insignificant Admiration
Norstedts. S
Martina von Schwerin was of an age with the French Revolution and in her capacity as reader, letter-writer and hostess of literary salons, she was a key figure on the Swedish cultural scene in the 19th century. Ingrid Elam's portrait of her doubles as a study of the role of women as an audience for culture.

Ulf Peter Hallberg
Grand Tour
Ulf Peter Hallberg's Grand Tour is a sequel to the educational journey through Europe before and after the fall of the Wall that he made in Flanörens blick. His new collection of essays takes him to contemporary Berlin, Trieste, Rome, Budapest, Los Angeles, New York and Naples.

Kerstin Norborg
Missed abortion
Norstedts. S
Following her critically acclaimed debut novel Min faders hus («My father's house»; 2001), Kerstin Norborg returns with a short-story collection that has also been well received. The collection consists of fourteen short stories on themes of children and family life, with the miscarriage of the title story as a recurrent motif.

Stefan Jonsson
Three revolutions
Norstedts. S
«A short history of the people» is the subtitle of Stefan Jonsson's account of three moments with one-hundred-year intervals when the common people have taken possession of the historical stage; Paris 1789, Brussels 1889 and Eastern Europe 1989.

Mats Kolmisoppi
The Hoverers
Norstedts. S
This novel about youth was awarded the Aftonbladet literature prize with the following justification: «We opened our hearts and the world fell in.» That is exactly what it is like to be young. There is a defencelessness but also a lack of defences in a positive sense. The world touches you, and you touch the world.»

Nina Burton
The new city of women
Albert Bonniers. S
Nina Burton has been described as one of the most individualistic essayists in the Nordic countries. In her latest book she travels through the centuries in search of those pioneering women in all areas of life who have been forgotten and omitted from the history books.  

Erik Wijk
Everything has happend
Ordfront. S
«A basic course on the everyday philosophy of being a human being»- that is the uniting factor in this thoughtful book on the fundamentals of life by Erik Wijk, a prominent figure in Swedish public debate.

Lina Einhorn
Nina's Journey
Bokförlaget Prisma. S
Nina Einhorn's story of how she miraculously survived the holocaust and managed to escape to Sweden, as told to her daughter Lena, won the August Prize for non-fiction and has been made into a film.

Klas Östergren
Gangsters
Albert Bonniers. S
25 years after Östergren's breakthrough novel Gentlemen comes the longawaited sequel continuing the story of the Morgan brothers. It is an epic tale reaching from the late seventies to today, and it also sheds new light on events in the first novel, which has just been re-issued.

Eva Adolfsson
Transformation
Albert Bonniers. S
This novel was awarded the Swedish Radio literature prize in 2006 because, as the jury of listeners stated, it «describes something that almost defies being put into words. She recounts the double expectancy of a woman - about to give birth to both a child and a text - in a way which touches both men and women.»

Elise Ingvarsson
Depends bulkily on
Norstedts. S
Elise Ingvarsson's debut collection of poetry was one of two winners of the Katapult prize in 2006. The jury statement said that she «applies strong integrity, great seriousness and a liberating sense of humour in writing about the greatest issues in people's lives».

Martin Högström
Transfutura
OEI editör. S
First-time writer Martin Högström won a shared Katapult prize for the story of the new type-face transfutura, «a book that manages at once both to explain and obscure the issue in a fascinating way, showing that an overview of the history of typography can be poetry, too».

Kristian Lundberg
Job
Brutus Östlings förlag Symposion. S
This new collection of poetry from prolific writer Kristian Lundberg, with his familiar set of subjects in a Malmö setting, was unanimously praised by the critics as one of his very best and nominated for the August Prize.

Peter Adolphsen
Machine
Samleren. DK
A small high energy novel that places itself on the edge of literature by playing with different genres and encyclopaedic style. The book changes constantly - from dry as dust passages to purely verbal escapades. Typical of Adolphsen, his quest takes us back to the dawn of time. The Big Bang is there - prehistoric times and prehistoric material - but it is also a depiction of our own time. In the strangest of ways, a little drop of oil from the heart of a prehistoric horse unleashes the epic story of Clarissa and Jimmy, whose very different destinies are euphorically intertwined.

Jesper Wung Sung
Lidt berømt, meget berygtet («Slightly Famous, Very Infamous»)
Samleren. DK
A gigantic novel about a third generation school teacher and his life at a school in a small community on Funen. The book paints a precise picture of the sorrows and joys that are associated with being a pupil or a teacher. It is a recollection of a lifetime at school which is at times jesting and high-spirited, at times melancholic and very much in earnest. Even though this story about Martin Jensen classifies as a school teacher novel, it is actually no less than a broadly conceived narrative about universal dilemmas of guilt and innocence, chance and destiny.

Morten Søndergaard
Et skridt i den rigtige retning («A Step in the Right Direction»)
Borgen. DK
Søndergaard's latest book consists of four large sequences, which literally and metaphorically define the concept of walking: physically, mentally, socially and existentially. The book is at once unpretentiously simple and at the same time subtly complex, abounding in erudite literary references. Of central significance is the long epic poem about Orpheus and Eurydice. A mythological reflection on art and the paradox that art is at once transient and yet has the ability to encapsulate eternity.

Simon Grotrian
Melatonin
Borgen. DK
The title of Grotrian's new collection of poems is as cryptic as the rest of his lyrical universe. Melatonin is the hormone produced by darkness that synchronises our internal biological rhythms with the seasonal and diurnal rhythms of our own ecological systems within the universe. It provides a leitmotif in this series of poetical and prose sequences involving journeys through unknown landscapes - some of them through the inmost inscrutable paths of our minds, and others through social or mythological space.

Carsten René Nielsen
Enogfyrre dyr («Forty-one Animals»)
Borgen. DK
This book is an inventive surreal narrative about life's problems, big and small. Everything is seen through the eyes of animals, normally considered dumb, who in this book have the courage and capability to voice their opinions. Their grotesque, surrealistic metamorphoses allegorically take us through our own human universe with a seriousness which, after all, is just good fun.

Peter Høeg
Den stille pige («The Quiet Girl»)
Rosinante. DK
The title of Høeg's long-awaited novel doesn't match its content. It is all but a quiet novel. Rather a freely fantasizing action story about the 42-year-old Kasper Krone. He has many talents; he is a famous circus clown addicted to poker - and music by Bach. His hearing is supersonic, but he lives like a hunted animal due to gigantic tax arrears. There is a link from this story to another dramatic story about the main character's former pupil, a little 10-year-old girl who is abducted and reported missing.

Hanne Vibeke Holst
Kongemordet («Regicide»)
Gyldendal. DK
Perhaps this year's most talked about book which will soon be made into a movie. It is a political novel about former Minister of Finance, Gert Jacobsen, who treads the corridors of power with ease. Extremely intelligent and a shrewd tactician, but also a cynical master manipulator who likes to demonstrate his power in the public domain of politics as well as at home, where he humiliates his wife physically and mentally.

Dorrit Willlumsen
Den dag jeg blev Honey Hotwing («The Day I Became Honey Hotwing»)
Gyldendal. DK
In nine short stories, ranging from simplicity to free-wheeling fantasy, Dorrit Willumsen describes people who find it difficult to be themselves and wish to be someone else. The stories are acute, cheerful, ironic and tragic. With a keen eye for the post-modern chaos of our time, Willumsen paints a grotesque picture of people who have an urge to find their way in life through desperate alternative means.

Pablo Henrik Llambías
Et ukendt barn («An Unknown Child»)
Gyldendal. DK
A large-scale novel about the twentieth century's ideological and military battles, and the inheritance that the new millennium must administer. In terms of genre, Llambías' book ranges from fiction to reality, and his tone can be both playful and serious. Stories are wedged in between other stories, but the book still holds a clear focus as we follow a 35-year-old man who is trying to find his way in life after a divorce.

Ib Michael
Grill
Gyldendal. DK
A contemporary novel about love and war. It is a psychological thriller, as well as a political account of Denmark in 2005, in the light of the international, dramatic events related to the war in Iraq. Interwoven with the main story is a subplot about Grill, a lighting designer, who by chance meets a girl called René, who bit by bit tells her about her love affair with a Danish Arab. 

Søren K. Lauridsen
Det tredje billede («The Third Picture»)
Attika. DK
After a period primarily devoted to poetry, Søren K. Lauridsen is back with a collection of prose comprising seven short stories. The title, «The Third Picture», refers to the result of a meeting between the first two pictures - the first presenting the immediate plot of the story, and the second the psychological/existential tensions generated by it. Only when these two pictures come together and form a symbiosis - through the reader's interpretation - can the third and final picture appear.

Mette Thomsen
Vindæg/Abortus Inhibitus («Unfertilized Eggs»)
Samleren. DK
It has been a while since Mette Thomsen published a series of contemporary psychological novels in the mid-nineties. It is therefore surprising that she has now recently published a slim volume of poetry about the smallest things in life: sounds, smells and visual impressions from the outside world. But it is, after all, precisely in the perception of the elementary that thoughts about the greatness of life are born.

Fredrik Strage
Fans
Natur och Kultur. S
«A book about obsession» is the subtitle of this book about the dedicated fans of pop stars. Strage, himself a former fan, describes the function of idols as being sources of hope and inspiration, but also looks at the way the entertainment industry creates illusions of intimacy.

Carola Hansson
The Master's Dream
Norstedts. S
Two sisters from Uppsala go to China as missionaries after the First World War. Carola Hansson's novel, based on documentary material, records their trials and tribulations until the conflict between the nationalists and the communists in the 1930s and the Japanese occupation - a time when they become assailed by doubts.

Steen Bach Christensen
Hvide skygger («White Shadows»)
Borgen. DK
Bach Christensen is a painter and writer. In this biographical novel he reinvents the story of the great Danish sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen, who lived in Rome most of his life. The book goes all the way back to Thorvaldsen's childhood, and then on to describe the years he studied at the Academy of Art, and follows him along his road to fame. Bach Christensen's focus is on Thorvaldsen's art, life, his social circle, and his relationships with women.

Dan Turèll
Dan Turèll og Sølvstjernerne vender tilbage («The Return of Dan Turèll and the Silver Stars») (CD)
Borgen. DK
Despite the generous title, there is scarcely any chance that we ever will get either Dan Turèll or the Silver Stars back again. But a new CD, with nine tracks that have never been released before, is a fair comfort now that we can't experience Uncle Danny live anymore. It is so DANish - and it is so great. Bubblingly brash and blasphemous, with the characteristically playful Turèllish ear for music, language and rhythm. Many modern rappers could learn a lot from the way he phrases and styles his language.