Son of Svea

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, scrubbing, and canning represent the poverty of the peasantry. Ragnar, for his part, hails the efficiency of washing machines and prefab food. Once he has children himself, he raises them in accordance with his values, standing in the ski track supporting his daughter Elsa as she works hard to become one of the best skiers in the country. While Svea is a relic of the past, Elsa represents hope for the future. In time, however, Ragnar realizes that the world is changing. Is his golden age coming to an end?
 
In Son of Svea, Lena Andersson offers a characteristically funny, wise, and moving family chronicle about the social transformations that unite and divide us, and about finding the courage to be true to oneself.
 


Genre: General Fiction

"Son of Svea is a sharp, skillful look at social democracy and the welfare state in Sweden through the life of Ragnar Johansson--a determined and at times infuriating 'ordinary' man who rises and recedes with the political movement. Born to a working-class father and an uneducated mother from the countryside, Ragnar sees the state as the answer to all of life's problems, despite his own confusion and ambivalence about the world and his place in it. His mother, Svea; wife, Elisabet; and children, Erik and Elsa, are forced to contend with Ragnar's fervent, sometimes cruel and fanatical beliefs about the correct way to live--beliefs that are eventually overwhelmed by time and change. This deeply interior novel provides a nuanced view of a social and political landscape that often glitters from afar, but is--like all places--complicated and full of contradictions." - Karen Engelmann

"Lena Andersson's Son of Svea is an insightful dissection of the rise and fall of the Swedish welfare state, or 'people's home, ' as it is known in Sweden. She writes with wry humor that walks the fine line between comic and tragic without ever putting a foot wrong. Andersson's keen eye for the subtle detail of many types of social mobility and the tragedy of different generations never truly connecting makes for a thought-provoking reading experience." - Emmi Itäranta

"Intellectual, agile, sharp, occasionally uncomfortable, always uncompromising, Son of Svea is a novel about modern Sweden from our most important voice, Lena Andersson. Her crystal-clear prose shapes Son of Svea into an absolute gem of a book." - David Lagercrantz

"Lena Andersson's epic novel moves through a century of Scandinavian idealism like a winter storm. Son of Svea opens with the founding of social democracy, roars on through the rise of the welfare state and the murder of Olof Palme, and reaches an icy end in the ex-utopian Stockholm suburbs. Lena Andersson has an unparalleled eye for how ideology and family life interweave, turning the myths of modernism into something warmer and more intimate. Andersson's novel is a powerful ode to the humble people who gave Scandinavia the one thing America misses most of all: upward mobility that is more than just a dream." - Mikkel Rosengaard