Sara Stridsberg

You poor, poor Anglophones who don't get to read Sara Stridsberg. You should do something about that.

Beckomberga har mycket av det jag älskat i hennes tidigare romaner - medkänslan med de mest befuckade (är det ett ord? Vi behöver ett ord för uppfuckad som inte lägger hela ansvaret på den fuckade, utan att frikänna hen för allt), den förundrat lyriska prosan, personporträtten som säger bara precis så mycket som man behöver veta, berättarna som nästan blir lite för förtjusta show more i sina egna metaforer i jakten på ett sätt att motivera sina handlingar... Samtidigt är det också en av hennes egnaste berättelser, verklighetsbaserad men utan de tydliga kopplingarna till kända personer eller kända romaner som Drömfakulteten och Darling River någon gång kanske lutade sig aningen för tydligt emot. På Dagensbok.com beskrev Tone den som en modern Bergtagen, och det ligger någonting i det - symboliken för världen i stort ligger tydlig i bakgrunden och ibland i förgrunden; hon säger uttryckligen att Beckomberga mentalsjukhus liv (1932-1995) sammanfaller med den svenska välfärdsstaten, urbaniseringen, en förklaringsmodell på något vis. När Per Albin talade om folkhem blev det plötsligt också möjligt att behandla de sjuka, och att därmed definiera dem som sjuka, som något att stänga in och aldrig förvänta sig se igen. Jimmy Darling åker in på Beckomberga när Tjernobyl exploderar, understruket av mordet på Palme. (Jag tänker på vad Teju Cole skrev i Open City, att det moderna samhället har förlorat alla sätt att hantera trauma, inte kan spjälka katastrofer.)

Samtidigt är det ändå i det lilla hon arbetar, i beröringen, i vägran att döma ens för det hemskaste. Life is no way to treat an animal, som det står på en annan metaförfattares gravsten. Men det blir bara viktigare för det. show less

Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019
edited 9 April - I can't believe this one missed out on the shortlist!!

This is a vibrant, visceral reimagining of the life and legacy of Valerie Solanas, the radical feminist whose 15 minutes of notoriety came in 1968 when she shot and almost killed Andy Warhol.

Stridsberg gets her disclaimer in from the start: "The Faculty of Dreams is not a biography, it is a literary fantasy derived from the life and work of Valerie Solanas, American, show more now deceased. Few facts are known about Valerie Solanas and even to those this novel is not faithful..."

The first part Bambiland is grimly compulsive, mixing the sad stories of her lonely death with her lonely and abusive early childhood.

The story really picks up in the third part when she goes to university in Maryland and meets her partner and inspiration Cosmogirl (Anne Duncan), a fearless feminist whose mother is on death row in California, and the inspiration for the S.C.U.M. manifesto (the acronym stands for Society for Cutting up Men), which advocated the total removal of men, which they believed possible from observations on laboratory mice.

The final parts deal with how she was drawn into and discarded by Andy Warhol's Factory.

The text is a collage of fragments, and is rarely a comfortable read, but as a feat of imagination it works brilliantly and I believe it will remain in the memory. A strong contender for the prize. show less

Kristina is waiting to die, finally. She does not live anymore, she has been murdered and dismembered in the woods outside Stockholm, but she only really dies forever when her name will be spoken for the last time. So she floats in between the world and eternity, sees how her parents bury what has been found of her. She also visits her kids in their dreams, kids for whom she so hard wanted to be a good mother but unfortunately couldn’t be. Her life with Shane has always been a struggle and show more she somehow has always known that growing old wasn’t meant for her.

Sara Stridsberg’s novel is – despite the cruelty of the topic – wonderfully written and a poetic masterpiece. It opens with a description of what Kristina feels last, how she perceives nature during her last minutes when she is to become a part of the lake and the earth. It is also the story of a drug addict, a young woman who comes from a struggling family and does not find herself a place in the world and quickly relies on diverse substances to help her forget the darkness she finds outside and inside herself. It is a life lost, a life which could have become so much but didn’t.

It is heart-breaking to read the young woman’s account. How casually she tells the reader that at first, nobody misses her, neither her mother, nor her father who hasn’t seen her for years, nor her children. Yet, the later live a new life and her daughter might hardly remember her, too early in her life was she taken away and put into a foster family. Yet, this was the best Kristina could do for her, at least once in her life she did something right despite the feeling of loss.

When she was pregnant, she wanted to get clean, to be a good mother, to care for Valle and Solveig. However, the craving was always too strong, harshness of life always brought her back to the drugs. She feels ashamed for not having been able to care for the kids. But she has always lived in the darkness and the rare rays of light couldn’t lead her to another life.

A life not lived and yet, as humans, we are just a blink in eternity. In 2019, “The Antarctica of Love” was awarded Sveriges Radios Romanpris, a Swedish literary prize for the best novel of the year. It wasn’t the first time Stridsberg’s work was highly appreciated. She uses language in a unique way which does not only touch you profoundly but goes deep down into you and reaches you at your core having the novel make a deep impression that stings. show less

A vagabond driving apparently aimlessly along lonely country roads with his daughter on the back seat of his car. After a nap one day she wakes up and there is another little girl sitting on the seat next to her, whom her father eventually presents as her sister.
A sadly beautiful story that, for all its mystery, conjures up strong emotions in just a few short pages. Another of the masterful short stories in this fabulous collection.