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by Stig Dagerman (Author), Steven Hartman (Translator)
A selection of stories from Sweden's greatest post-war writer. "Dagerman wrote with beautiful objectivity. Instead of emotive phrases, he uses a choice of facts, like bricks, to construct an emotion."--Graham Greene
This collection includes a number of new translations, never before published in English, unified by the theme of the loss of innocence. Often narrated from a child's perspective, the stories give voice to receptiveness and joy tinged with longing and loneliness. Alice McDermott writes in the preface to this edition, "An imagination that appeals to an unreasonable degree of sympathy is precisely what makes Dagerman's fiction so evocative. Evocative not, as one might expect, of despair, or bleakness, or existential angst, but of compassion, fellow-feeling, even love." Stig Dagerman's fearless, moving stories have been compared to the best short fiction of such luminaries as James Joyce, Anton Chekhov, and Raymond Carver. You'll find yourself holding your breath in wonder as you read, grateful to Dagerman for the gift of these stories. At once remote and intimate in tone, these works by one of the great twentieth-century writers come fully to life in a remarkable translation by Steven Hartman.Front Jacket
Stig Dagerman (1923 1954) is regarded as the most talented young writer of the Swedish post-war generation. By the 1940s, his fiction, plays, and journalism had catapulted him to the forefront of Swedish letters, with critics comparing him to William Faulkner, Franz Kafka, and Albert Camus. His suicide at the age of thirty-one was a national tragedy. This selection, containing a number of new translations of Dagerman's stories never before published in English, is unified by the theme of the loss of innocence. Often narrated from a child's perspective, the stories give voice to childhood's tender state of receptiveness and joy tinged with longing and loneliness. The title story, "Att d da ett barn" ("To Kill A Child"), is the most famous of Dagerman's short stories and among the most anthologized and oft-read stories in Sweden.
