Jerker Virdborg: A majority of the authors still love the fabrications

the Year 2015 published for the Danish professor in literature, Frederik Tygstrup the essay ”Literature, geography, technology and epistemology”. He argues in the text that the understanding of the concept of literature is changing and make three important observations:

Since the 1800-century literature often used in the nationalistic purposes. In the desire to link human identity to a certain geographical area became the literature of the grateful, especially for a mythologizing of the past. In Sweden, for instance, the works of Verner von Heidenstam and Selma Lagerlöf to be seen as delkapitel in a larger, shared story of our country's history.

Lena Andersson: The lying literature

the domestic literary canon, is a closely related idea, similarly to literature course contributes to the national language development. But, stresses Tygstrup, in our globalized, postcolonial era this is connected with our hopes for literature is no longer to the nation but to the other kind of tankerum where the cosmopolitan and the local area can meet. And these new conditions threaten to marginalise the literature.

For the second point Tygstrup on more and more literature is read from the monitors. Thus further change the meaning of the word. When we are not surrounded by text on the the separation way that a physical book requires, affected the reading experience. Moreover, in a digital market that it is no longer needed intermediaries such as the bookstore, library or even publisher before the text reaches the reader. The literary cycle then becomes harder to follow.

Finally, the stresses Tygstrup to the vital part of samtidsprosan increasingly challenging fiktionskontraktet. This implied litteraturkontrakt – persons and events are fictitious and should not be confused with reality – arose in the 1700s. But as the amount of false news in social media increased, prosaförfattare as Claus Beck-Nielsen and Karl Ove Knausgård, hand-in-hand with realitytrenden in the tv, are engaged in keen autofiktiva strategies in the borderland, where the reader can no longer distinguish fact from fiction. ”If someone claims that the fiction of the day playing with verklighetsinslag we can answer that it is due to the reality, increasingly, is playing with fiktionsinslag” says Tygstrup. During the 2000s, the literature thus lost the right to lie. And then change our look on it as an art form.

Also the interest of the Jens Liljestrands Vilhelm Moberg-biography ”the Man in the woods” speaks for itself

Karl Ove Knausgård. Photo: Anders Hansson

is interesting. But, in sweden, are they real?

You can easily see a number of works in Sweden, which in recent years has been interpreted, and been hailed, as part of a national history project. For how can we not read the novels, say, Torbjörn Flygts the ”Underdog”, Kristina Sandberg May trilogy or Lena Andersson's ”Sveas son” as the analysis of the welfare state, too? The books all contribute to broaden and expand on a larger story about the country of Sweden, just as for the other Linnea axelsson's ”Ædnan”. Also the interest for Jens Liljestrands Vilhelm Moberg-biography ”the Man in the woods” speaks a clear language. Tygstrups thesis of marginalization feels so distant: rather, these authors, and several of them, precisely because of the ability to portray the nation through literature achieved the direct opposite: Big läsarskaror.

Lena Andersson Photo: Eva Tedesjö

The technical changes then? The last five years, sales of paper books fallen, yes – but only with a few per cent. And near enough none at all, except the people in the book industry, reading today novels on screens. The number of hörboksabonnemang increases significantly, but the proportion of books specially crafted for listening or digital use is extremely low. And for publishers this means they economically nothing. The literary cycle has thus changed, but the number of intermediaries hardly become fewer.

Agnes Lidbeck: Read me as if I were dead and buried

fiktionskontraktet? the A crowd of Swedish writers, some influenced by just Knausgård, seem to feel trapped by the contract, as if it, with Tygstrups words, would be ”a verklighetsfrånvänd cage.” Autofiktiva methods relieves some, the interface seems yet unexplored, and for the readers create the sometimes total identification with the sender intense textupplevelser.

But a vast majority of the older as well as younger Swedish writers are still fiktionskontraktet faithful. I guess for the love of the fabrications, in and of itself, and for that they experience autofiktionen as too self-revealing and in addition full of risks for the ethically questionable, speculative effects. The vital Swedish literature of today are written not at all only through that challenge fiktionskontraktet, but in a number of different genres.

It may sometimes be tempting to collect the scattered characters from the present and then of the zeal, enlarge their impact. The meanings of the word literature is at the same time, in some places even the right to be persistent.

Read more texts by Jerker Virdborg , for example, about why that storhandla on the Coop can be an intense reading experience .