The Emperor of lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg
05 Apr 2012 10 Comments
in shadow IFFP 2012, Sweden Tags: 2012, prize winners, TRANSLATIONS
The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg
Swedish fiction
Translator Sarah Death
Steve Sem-sandberg is a Swedish writer ,his unusual first name is due to his parents living in the US ,when he was born he initially appeared at age 18 in 1976 with a debut novel a sci-fi and wrote a couple of others til in 1979 he stopped and then 1987 he reappeared with a different style existentialists new stuff has received high praise and he has won seven prizes including the august prize in 2009 for this book (this prize is the Swedish version of the booker ) he lived in Vienna during the writing of the book . He also translates into Swedish notably Jon Fosse and John Berger .
So what is Emperor of lies about it’s a thick book 650 pages long .It follows the story of Poland’s second largest Jewish Ghetto during world war two in Lodz . May I say right from the start this is a harrowing piece of Holocaust literature but one maybe people need to read .We meet Chaim Rumkowski or King Chaim as he is known ,we see how this man was maybe the best or worst thing in the ghetto as he tried to run things for the Jewish community inside the ghetto as he placed himself as the leader of the ghetto ,whilst also trying to keep the right side of the german tyrants .Chaim wasn’t the nicest of men but he kept the ghetto working hard and thus it was one of the last to have people sent to the concentration camps as it was profitable for the germans to keep it .This book sees how that was possible a warts and all account of the ghetto .
A person calling himself King Chaim had been holding court here for some days ,an old man of seventy with great ambitions a little crazy .He tells miraculous tales of the Ghetto in Lodz .There is Jewish state of four hundred police officers and three jails .He has own” ministry of foreign affairs ” and various other departments
The Jewish council in Warsaw struggles with Chaim’s claims .
Now this book has been compared to Dickens in a number reviews it is easy to see why but maybe an easier comparison would be Tolstoy’s war and peace as like that books focus on the Napoleonic war ,this focus on the ghetto and this like war and peace includes maybe a hundred characters .There is a handy index in the back to keep up with them ,also a map at the front which includes the polish and german street names this saved me some confusion ,so Chaim was very organised having been a businessman before the war he spilt the ghetto into four got them their own police force and made sure they produced what the Germans needed maybe a little misguided in the view .He also had a sister how is a damaged soul .
Mrs Rumkowska and Princess Helena could not stand each other .Regina called Helena a crazy hysteric ,Helena called Regina a fanatical parvenu who had turned the head of an old man .
Chaim sister and his wife don’t see eye to eye .
Right my thoughts I was a bit weary of this one when it appeared on longlist ,I always worry about holocaust fiction that isn’t written by a survivor or some one of Jewish or other races that were connected to the horrors of the camps and ghettos .But this is a wonderfully researched and thought out book it brings to life the daily feel of the ghetto and the pressures of the people living in the camps at the time .Sem-Sandberg has brough the dark corners of the ghetto The horrors violence and sheer abuse that faced everyone ,everyday in the ghetto .We also see the problems faced by the leading figure in the Jewish community in the camp as they try to keep them selves from the gas chambers .Chaim wasn’t the nicest guy he had a thing for little girls and maybe with out the war would be detested by his own community ,but the war focused him as he held in his hand the lives of all the people in Lodz Ghetto . I found this harrowing book I ve read a number of Holocaust books both fiction and Non-fiction this is among the better written ones but I m not sure if the approach is 100% right .But maybe the time is right to look at how some of the Jewish people interacted at the time .As there are good and bad people on both sides of war .
Have you read this book ?
Steig Larsson my friend by Kurdo Baksi
20 Oct 2011 9 Comments
in Sweden Tags: bio, crime fiction, non fiction
Steig larsson my friend by Kurdo Baksi
Swedish Non fiction
Translated by Laurie Thompson
Steig Larsson is without a doubt the biggest success in translated fiction of recent times ,he also lead to the great number of Nordic crime books we see on our book shop shelves ,unfortunately he died before the huge success of the books he wrote hit home ,so this book by a colleague and good friend of the man is a great insight into him as a person and writer .Kurdo Baksi a Kurd writer journalist and magazine owner , that has lived in Sweden since the 80′s like Stieg he is a figure in the anti fascist movement in Sweden and runs a magazine about anti fascism .he first meet Stieg in 1992 as their paths crossed with stieg,s non fiction books on the extreme right in Sweden and the shared beliefs in this movement grew into a great friendship .They both ran magazines Stieg Larsson Expo and Kurdo Baksi Svartitt .We let into the world of Swedish journalism where these two writers Stieg in particular walk a line of danger where because they have highlighted the extreme right with exposes of these movements ,they have to watch what they do ,then there is also the hate mail he got from the right-wing nutters .What you get is Stieg dedication to democracy and freedom of speech this lead to long hours and as Kurdo put it a man fueled by cigarettes and coffee in equal measures .The two men are drawn closer when Stieg magazine runs into trouble so rather than let it go out of print he and Kurdo join together and publish the two magazines as one as Kurdo is a better business man than Stieg .THE other thread of Stieg life that kurdo lets us into is the personnel man Stieg lived with his partner Eva whom kurdo knows well and helps at times when she is worried about Stieg had traveled a lot in his youth as a sort of backpacker spend time in africa this had a lasting effect on him .
On 30 november 1998 ,T.T . issued a newsflash .The anti racist journal Expo had been resurrected ,thanks to a merger with the swedish magazine svartvitt .
I was quoted ;”expo had been outstandingly good at investigating racism .but they never grasped how to make money .That is where I can help them “
The magazine combine their talents .
So you can say I liked this book in fact I loved it read it in an evening as I want to learn more a\nd more about Stieg I enjoyed the millenium trilogy when I read it and knew a bits about Stieg’s life, but this book fleshed out the scant facts I had . He comes across as a man who work hard in fact a real workaholic that slept very little and cared for his fellow-man ,the millenium trilogy is just part of his story his activism was the bigger picture and that in turn is shown in the books of the millenium trilogy which the Kurdo appears in as a character .This bio is a loving tribute from someone who knew Stieg and admired him also due to working everyday with him for later part of Stieg life knew him as he worked on the books that made his name .
Have you read this or Stieg’s trilogy ?
Until thy wrath be past by Åsa Larsson
11 Aug 2011 6 Comments
in NORDIC FICTION, Sweden, TRANSLATIONS Tags: 2011, ÅSA larsson, crime fiction, NORDIC CRIME, prize winners, sweden
Until thy wrath be past by Åsa Larsson
Åsa Larsson is a swedish crime writer ,she worked as a tax lawyer before becoming a full-time writer .This is her fourth book to be translated into english .Her grandfather was a famous Swedish skier and she has host radio shows in her native Sweden this book features Rebecka Martinsson as have some of her earlier books .She won the best Swedish crime book in 2004 for Blood spilled another from this series ,also the first book in the series Solstorm was made into a film in Sweden .
So Rebecka Martinsson is a Prosecutor in the far north of Sweden ,this job is a cross between our C.I.D and the crown prosecution service they direct the police how to investigate criminal cases deciding when arrests need to be made in the case her police officer is another women Anna-Maria Mella .They are investigating the murder of a young women called Wilma Peterson her body appeared in the river as the spring thaw began .Their investigation draws them to a plane that went missing in the 1940′s people working with the germans during the second world wae ,a pair of brothers that made a lot of money at the time ,these brothers were very intimating to the locals and still via the sons have an influence in the area the crime happen ,a weird local that knows more than he is saying ,the attitude of the male colleagues towards them and also the friction in the own relationship all add to this book being a real page turner.Why were Wilma and her boyfriend where they were is there a missing crashed german plane from the war all these are questions you find the answer to in the book .
On sunday someone phoned the police station in Kiruna to say that he had information about the two kids who had featured in the late night news bulletin the day before .He said his was Goran Sillfors .
“I don’t know if what I have to tell you is all that significant” ,he said , “But you said yourselves ,rather a call too many tan one too few ,so i thought..”
A lead on the case maybe ?
So what did I make of until thy wrath be past the title being a quote from the bible well ,I ve read other nordic crime books over the last few years and this one needs to sit near the top of the pile in the leads Rebecka and Anna Maria she has two different female characters one smart that has worked to be were she is ,the other has a family both have men in their lives ,she makes them leap of the page into flesh and blood .I also loved the way she brought the north of Sweden to life describing the scenery so beautifully .
Frozen puddles and frostbitten moss crackled beneath our feet alanen Vittangivaara loomed to our left
or
frost had nipped at every blade of grass,every twig ,making them brittle and crispy white .Sprays of lingonberry and stunted juniper bushes were a dull shade of wintry green .
lingonberry
She catches the interaction between characters so well the slight tension between the women .The way they can be dismissed by their male counter parts in the police .The fear the brothers cause then and now .The crime is realistic which is more than I can say of some of the other nordic crime novels I ve read .I enjoyed reading female leads that I could get on with as a male reader I sometimes struggle with female leads but these two were wonderful ,also as a coffee drinker I must note they like their lot of coffee . So better tha Harry hole for me ,yes she is the other Larsson but Rebecka is not another Lisbeth Salander she is a new face for Nordic crime .and this is part of a series but makes great reading by itself .
Have you read this or any in the series ?
What is your favourite Nordic crime novel ?
THREE SECONDS BY ROSLUND AND HELLSTORM
25 Oct 2010 5 Comments
in EUROPEAN FICTION, NORDIC FICTION, Sweden Tags: crime fiction, prize winners, TRANSLATIONS
Source – review copy from Quercus .
Three seconds is the fifth novel by the Swedish crime writing partnership of Anders Roslund ,a tv journalist who set up a well-known Swedish art show (culture news ) .His partner is Borge Hellstrom work with the Swedish drug rehabilitation services and found an organisation to help criminal back in to society .
The book centres on two main characters Piet Hoffmann ,a complex man a company owner ,happily married yet on the flip side he is police informant and face of the polish mafia ,the other main character that appears mainly in second half of the book is Evert Grens a swedish police detective in his late fifties a troubled man from an incident in the past he is first introduce solving a murder in Stockholm .The men collide in a complex plan that involves Hoffman getting caught and sent to a maximum security prison the most dangerous in Sweden ,there is a killing and Gren is sent to find the killer unaware of Hoffmann’s really purpose he is a there is a lot twists and turns to you reach the climax of the book .
He left Vasagatan and then got caught in a traffic Jam by Slussen .It was nearly five o’clock and he should have been at the kindergarten an hour ago .
Piet Hoffmann sat in the car and desperately tried to fend off the stress and heat and irritation caused by the afternoon traffic ,which he could do nothing about .Three lanes at a standstill as far down the tunnel as he could see .To combat this battle with the city ,he often though about the soft skin on Zofia’s face when he stroked it or Hugo eyes when he managed to cycle on his own ,or Ramus’s hair splashed with carrot soup .
Hoffmann in his normal life as a married man fetching his kids .
Now this won the Swedish crime novel of the year and is bound to be compared to Steig Larsson ,with the fact it is published by the same Publisher Quercus and one of its writers is a Journalist like Larsson ,But to compare them is doing this a disservice .Three seconds is a complex well researched novel it is like a snowman being built very slow it starts to roll out of control as it grows .The detail in the first few hundred pages serve well for the climax of the book .Grens and Hoffmann are well penned as characters .This novel is highly original I ve never read such a intriguing thriller .the translation is spot on by Kari Dickson A tutor in scandinvian language at Edinburgh university .
