From one of Sweden’s most astute cultural critics, a razor-sharp comedy of the progress and ruin of the industrial welfare state, told through the story of a single family.Ragnar Johansson is born in 1932, a transformative moment in Swedish history. He has Swedish social democracy flowing through his veins—convinced it lifted humankind out of the dark ages and into modernity, he cherishes it. At times Ragnar despises his mother, Svea, whose perpetual baking, scrubb...

'A novel of heartbreak told with intellectual rigor. It gripped me from first page to last. Fantastic!'Alice Sebold, the author of The Lovely BonesWhen Ester Nilsson meets the actor Olof Sten, she falls madly in love.Olof makes no secret of being married, but he and Ester nevertheless start to meet regularly and begin to conduct a strange dance of courtship. Olof insists he doesn't plan to leave his wife, but he doesn't obje...

'Gripped me like an airport read . . . perfect.' Lena Dunham'Lena Andersson's Wilful Disregard is a story of the heart written with bracing intellectual rigor. It is a stunner, pure and simple.' Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely BonesWinner of the August Prize 2013On the day that Ester Nilsson, a poet and a sensible person in a sensible relationship, meets renowned artist Hugo Rask, her rational w...