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...

Winner of Sweden's most prestigious literary award, a novel about an otherwise sensible woman's descent into the obsession and delusion of unrequited love.Ester Nilsson is a sensible person in a sensible relationship. She knows what she thinks and she acts according to her principles.Until the day she is asked to give a lecture on renowned artist Hugo Rask. The man himself sits in the audience, spellbound, and when the two meet afterwards, he has the same e...