1990's short stories

In the 90's I was on the Editorial Board of the literary student's journal Ordkonst. We focused on young authors and when I moved on I remember having had enough of stories about young, unemployed men in an urban environment. But the maybe foremost characteristic of the literary 90's in Sweden was the short story. Cecilia Davidsson and Ninni Holmqvist are top of mind. Typic for the late (ie from the 1990's) short stories is that although in full light, there is something that is hard to get. The reality is well described but hard to understand. It's a world that is not consistent.

The Christmas Oratorio (Juloratoriet, 1983)

The novel turns around a family marked by the accident that killed the mother on her way to practise the Christmas Oratorio in choir. The husband, the son and the future grand son and the different shapes of grief are interpreted in variations on the theme of mourning. The Christmas Oratorio was adapted as a movie in 1996 and became widely known to the (Swedish) public.



As most works of Tunström, this novel takes place in the village of Sunne. The fantastic elements alludes to Marquez but also to the myth. He places the myth in the everyday life and gives an epic form to fundamental human experiences. This is Göran Tunström’s master piece. The key matter is: Can the individual when suffering a loss that seems to be devastating find a healing force that brings maturity and growth?

1980s - Postmodernism

The Swedish literature in the 80s is about postmodernism and poststructuralism.
The optimism of development turned into fanatic unfaithfulness. Critics were critized for being stuck in critisism of ideologies and not literature. Young authors were critised for not being conscient of the language and the relations between texts, intertextuality. Thematics of life then turned into thematics of language and the written text.
As an example can be mentioned Stig Larsson who (in Autisterna, the Autists) used a character with no name, a mere epic function, that moves freely in time and space. He is a screen on which events, environments and emotions can be projected. The text is a text. The novel describes unconcentered individuals in a scattered world.

Other prominent Swedish authors of the 1980s are Peter Kihlgård, Björn Ranelid, Inger Edelfeldt and Mare Kandre.

Väderkvarnarna (the Windmills, 1962)

Arne Sand was almost always out of time. Back then, it seemed as he was always lagging behind, but much later we can think of him as someone before his time. He appears to be an paradigmatic author of the 1950s with his interest of the character and means of fiction.

The main character of the Windmills is an art critic, Donald Johansson, that comes to the family Martstad to study their Jugend mansion and falls in love with the daughter and then her mother. The novel consists of conversations that are hard to follow because however brilliant they do not make sense, which creates a distance. It has been mentioned as the first Swedish non-figurative novel and the most daring experimental novel of the 1960s. The novel alludes to Cervantes, Shakespeare and Kafka but most of all it reminded me of the surrealistic L’écume des jours of Boris Vian from 1947.

The Days of his Grace (Hans Nådes tid, 1960)

Eyvind Johnson mainly wrote historical and autobiographical pieces, sometimes entirely documentary. He renewed the novel and was a precursor in documentarism and got followers later on in the 60s. In 1974 he shared the Nobel Prize in literature “for a narrative art, far-seeing in lands and ages, in the service of freedom”.

Johnson problematized the matter of time and memory and he was inspired by Henri Bergson. Other influences came from Marcel Proust, James Joyce and Thomas Mann.
The Days of his Grace takes place during the years of Karl the Great, approximately 775-825, and gives a depressing image of the world under his reign. In focus is the individual that is ground into nothing in the mill of powers. Like Vilhelm Moberg, Eyvind Johnson worked closely with authentic material. The story has three narrative levels – a trick to introduce more of the original material. This also makes it harder to distinguish different characters – the individual is complex and ever changing and the line between personalities is not distinct.

1960s - Take a stand

The early 60s, Swedish literature was still under the influence of relativism and unfaithfulness but during the second part of the 1960s, the political and economical debate is introduced in the arts. New, more genuine forms are sought and the “aristocracy-modernism” is dismissed when turning the back towards academia and media. Socialrealistic reporterprose and ideological criticism becomes in fashion. Literature is no longer art but serves to deliver emotions, in a functional way. Arts should serve people, as an act of solidarity.

The notion of culture broadens. The literary critic is now a contemporary intellectual as opposed to yesterday’s esthetical judge. The French structuralism is introduced in Sweden and along comes the “nouveau roman”. Important genres in the Swedish literature of the 60s are journey accounts (Sven Lindqvist, Jan Myrdal), reports and documentaries (PC Jersild, Sara Lidman) where interviews are common and also experimental prose (Torsten Ekbom).