Award-winning book about Abraham Lincoln's grief

KulturÅSIKTPrisad book about Abraham Lincoln's sorgKulturhuset's international literature prize to George Saunders and Niclas Nilsson for ”Lincoln in the bardo” This is a kulturartikel , which is a part of Aftonbladet's opinionsjournalistik.Photo: David Crosby/Sara Mac KeyDen american writer George Saunders and the Swedish translator Niclas Nilsson may Kulturhuset stadsteatern's international literature prize for her novel Lincoln in the bardo. CULTURE

”To write about Abraham Lincoln is an american about who to write about Jesus”, the author says George Saunders . He is certainly buddhist, but felt the press, and the bar long of the story to his novel Lincoln in the bardo before he dared to write it.

last Sunday he was in Stockholm to receive the Kulturhuset stadsteatern's international prize for literature for his unusual novel, together with the translator to Niclas Nilsson .

It contains 166 different voices that, taken together, form a kyrkogårdskör of the dead and for the living of the president's grief for the loss of his old son.

Prismotivationen describes this historic experimentroman as ”just as playful as masterful depiction of the alienation”. Prissamtalet, led by prisjuryledamoten Jens Liljestrand , came, inevitably, into a modern-day president.

Lincoln in the bardo came out after Donald Trump elected president, but was written before. Saunders followed and commented on Trump's campaign, and some have thus wanted to connect the novel to the contemporary condition of the country.

About this " says Saunders that the united states is a country without a philosophical cold and now, many turn to the literature for the intellectual substance that is missing in the public sphere.

Death, which is the theme of his prized book, places democracy at its tip – the face of death we are all equal. When we are in sorrow and crisis, we fall far and hard without the safety net. ”When you understand and respect the sorrow, you respect the people,” says Saunders.