Lina Wolff

Nominerad till Augustpriset för Årets Skönlitterära Bok 2022

"Vid vilken tidpunkt spårar allt ur? Några veckor senare ska hon försöka kartlägga händelseförloppet, försöka förstå i vilket ögonblick kompassen förlorar norrläget."

En kvinna anländer till Florens där allt tycks henne främmande och överväldigande. Tegeltaken, kyrktornen, alla älskande par. Mannen hon har träffat. Hon tänker att hon själv kommer från en mycket karg trakt, har mycket att lära, och att han kan vara den som tinar den bottenfrusna jorden inom henne.

Det här är berättelsen om de två, om deras kroppar och sinnen. Om hennes grepp om honom, och hans allt hårdare grepp om henne. Djävulsgreppet.

"... så snillrik, så rolig, så oförutsägbar. Så tät och atmosfärisk ..."

Rebecka Kärde, Dagens Nyheter

"... årets kanske bästa svenska roman."

Mikaela Blomqvist, Göteborgs-Posten

"Rakt igenom är det gastkramande läsning och gestaltningen balanserar mästerligt mellan litterärt hisnande och saklig rapport."

Barbro Westling, Aftonbladet

Max Lamas drömmer om en älskarinna som talar alla hans språk. Sökandet tar honom från Stockholm till Italien, där han lär känna en markisinna som står på ruinens brant. Ellinor kommer från en by i Skåne. En dag sätter hon in en kontaktannons: Jag är trettiosex år gammal och söker en öm, men inte alltför öm, man. Och Lucrezia bevittnar hur hennes mormor går under i sitt avfolkade palats.I denna vindlande romanväv står mannens blick på kvinnan i centrum - men också förförelsen och förödmjukelsen, älskarnas hjärtskärande tillstånd, och drömmen om förståelse.

En svensk skribent åker till Madrid för att få inspiration till sitt nästa projekt. I en bar träffar hon en man som tror sig vara förföljd av skaparna till en ljusskygg nätshow som han medverkat i. Han ber henne gömma honom, och i gengäld berättar han sin historia. Det blir upptakten till ett möte mellan skribenten och den diaboliska mirakelgöraren Lucia - ett möte som till slut tvingar skribenten att fatta ett ödesdigert beslut kring sin egen inre essens.

"Köttets tid" är en roman om människans behov av andlighet - dock med fötterna långt nere i en ytterst oandlig verklighets gyttja. Det är också en undersökning av köttet, kött i olika stadier, skepnader och konstellationer.

Nominerad till Sveriges Radios romanpris 2020.

Häikäisevä, häiritsevä romaani on kuin rakkaustarinaksi naamioitunut kauhuelokuva.

Nainen saapuu Firenzeen, hän ihastuu kaupungin kauneuteen ja tapaa miehen. Kauas pohjoiseen on jäänyt aivan toisenlainen kotipitäjä.

Naisen ja miehen suhde muuttuu yhä jännitteisemmäksi. Pariskunnan välillä vallitsee kilpailu vallasta, alistumisesta ja halusta. Kunnes ote toisesta ylittää kaiken järjen.

Kirjan tyystin ainutlaatuinen ja oudon viettelevä kerronta runnoo väkivallan, himon, lihallisuuden sekä mies- ja naiskuvat järisyttäväksi lukukokemukseksi. Kuvaus mielen ja ruumiin haltuunsa ottavasta halusta läimäisee kaikkia rakkaustarinoita kasvoille.

At a run-down brothel in Caudal, Spain, the prostitutes are collecting stray dogs. Each is named after a famous male writer: Dante, Chaucer, and Bret Easton Ellis. When a john is cruel, the dogs are fed rotten meat.

To the east, in Barcelona, an unflappable teenage girl is endeavouring to trace the peculiarities of her life back to one woman: Alba Camb, writer of violent short stories, who left Caudal as a girl and never went back.

Mordantly funny, dryly sensual, written with a staggering lightness of touch, the debut novel in English by Swedish sensation Lina Wolff is a black and Bolaño-esque take on the limitations of love in a dog-eat-dog world.

Perfect for fans of Cho Nam-Joo's 'Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982'.

What people are saying about 'Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs':

"[A] filmic offering . . . channelling the spirit of Pedro Almodóvar. A thoroughly invigorating novel." - Lucy Scholes, The Independent

'Wolff has had enough of the big swinging dicks of masculine literature. [Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs is] clever and challenging and distinctive.' - Galen O'Hanlon, The Skinny

'Oddly compelling . . . a European postmodern novel steeped in alienation and ennui.' - Library Journal

'Wolff's prose has a quality of 'otherness' entirely in keeping with the surreal atmosphere of the novel. This strange, provocative debut sits well alongside the work of Roxane Gay, Katherine Angel, Maggie Nelson, Zoe Pilger and Miranda July . . . a cool, clever and fierce addition to the canon of modern feminist literature.' - Sarah Perry, The Guardian

'The author demonstrates a marvellous command of language and creates characters with real depth, lending the book a sensual vibe and an acerbic wit that force its emotional truths to rise above the grunge of its hard-boiled setting. A poetic, unsentimental drama that offers a meditation on love in all its disparate forms.' - Kirkus Reviews

'Wolff manoeuvres with great skill through her breathtaking multitude of worlds and an equally impressive cast of characters. Bret Easton Ellis . . . takes the reader on a roller-coaster from the tragic to the comical, with hints of the mysterious and magical scattered in between - it is a testimonial of a dead person remarkably full of life.' - The Bookbag, 5 Stars, January Book of the Month

'A book that you just want to give people and say: take a look at this, read it, experience it. I would have liked to devote the entire review to quoting sentences and paragraphs from the novel - it is almost as if that were the only way of adequately conveying the gravity, depth and lightness of Lina Wolff's prose, her tender yet pitiless character descriptions, her distinctive but also natural way of piecing together the novel's disparate parts into a shimmering whole.' - Eva Johansson, Svenska Dagbladet

Lina Wolff (1973- ) is a Swedish author. Having lived in Spain and Italy for several years working as a translator, Wolff arrived on the literary stage in 2009 with 'Många människor dör som du' ('Many People Die Like You) and won the prestigious Vi Magazine Literature Prize in 2012 for her debut novel, 'Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs'. She has since won several other literary awards, including the August Prize for Fiction and the Aftonbladet Literature Prize.

An underemployed chef is pulled into the escalating violence of his neighbour's makeshift porn channel. An elderly piano student is forced to flee her home village when word gets out that she's fucked her thirty-something teacher. A hose pumping cava through the maquette of a giant penis becomes a murder weapon in the hands of a disaffected housewife.

In this collection from the winner of Sweden's August Prize, Lina Wolff gleefully wrenches unpredictability from the suffocations of day-to-day life, shatters balances of power without warning, and strips her characters down to their strangest and most unstable selves.

Wicked, discomfiting, delightful and wry, delivered with the deadly wit for which Wolff is known, 'Many People Die Like You' presents the uneasy spectacle of people in solitude, and probes, with savage honesty, the choices we make when we believe no one is watching... or when we no longer care.

Perfect for fans of 'Austerlitz' by W.G. Sebald and 'The Months' by Javier Marías.

What people are saying about 'Many People Die Like You':

'Fantastic. Quiet, thoughtful and, in spite of all the suffering, very funny.' - Vi magazine

'Several of the stories are so funny that you'd probably bring joy to your neighbours if you read them aloud.' - Skånska Dagbladet

'An immediate success for Lina Wolff... Many People Die Like You is a more than promising debut. Lina Wolff is a skilled stylist and a good storyteller.' - Arbetarbladet

''Many People Die Like You' is full of life in motion. Depicted with such certainty that even the narrator's voice must at times give way to the swelling language. And so, Lina Wolff has arrived as one of the important voices in Swedish literature. Not least because of the freedom the texts create for themselves. A freedom full of pleasure and humor alongside ever-present earnestness.' - Helsingborgs Dagblad

'Lina Wolff either quickly visits people who are happening to have a good, perhaps heightened conversation. Or, she tells a story with a beginning and end. Two approaches to the short story, here both are equally exciting to read.' - Kulturnytt, Radio SR P1

'It's a matter of course of Lina Wolff's way of writing, as though each formulation and twist has been there all along, just waiting to be written down by her. Perhaps it is a matter of self-esteem, combined with a drive that draws you instantly and relentlessly into her stories. / ... / Wolff creates a hypnotic pull around her characters, making the reader wish they could remain in the story, how crass and chewy the lives portrayed can seem. The main characters are as often men as they are women, and Wolff writes with equal ease from a female and a male perspective. Human as humans are: sad and comical, petty and grand.' - Svenska Dagbladet

'Wolff's brilliant language, twisted intrigue and black humor makes this debut the best I've read this year.' - Femina magazine

Lina Wolff (1973- ) is a Swedish author. Having lived in Spain and Italy for several years working as a translator, Wolff arrived on the literary stage in 2009 with 'Många människor dör som du' ('Many People Die Like You) and won the prestigious Vi Magazine Literature Prize in 2012 for her debut novel, 'Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs'. She has since won several other literary awards, including the August Prize for Fiction and the Aftonbladet Literature Prize.

'A singular novel, sometimes brutal, certainly merciless.' - Le Figaro (France)

Ferocious and irreverent, this multiple prize-winning novel burns down the pretensions of a pompous literary establishment and takes no prisoners.

Ellinor is thirty-six. She wears soft black sweatpants and a Michelin Man jacket. She fights. Smart and unsentimental, she tries her hand at online dating, only to be stranded in a snowstorm with a literary critic.

Cut to Max Lamas, an author who dreams of a polyglot lover, a woman who will understand him in every tongue. His search takes him to Italy, where he befriends a Marchesa whose old Roman family is on the brink of ruin. At the heart of this literary intrigue is a handwritten manuscript that leaves no one unaffected.

The Polyglot Lovers is a fiercely witty and nuanced contribution to feminism in the #metoo era. Pleasure is an elusive thing, love even more so.

Lina Wolff was born in Lund, Sweden, and lived for several years in Spain and Italy, where she worked as a translator. In 2012 her debut novel,'Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs', won the prestigious Vi Magazine's Literature Award. In 2016 her novel 'The Polyglot Lovers' won Sweden's highest literary award, the August Prize for Fiction, and has been translated into seventeen languages. 'Carnality' was awarded the prestigious Aftonbladet Literature Prize in 2019.