After writing Fridthjof's Saga Tegner was considered the father of modern Swedish poetry. Fridthjof's Saga dates back to the 8th century in Iceland. King Beli had two sons, Helgi and Halfdan, and a daughter named Ingeborg. On the other side of the fjord, lived the king's friend whose son Frithjof was called "the bold" and he was the bravest among men. Frithjof had been raised together with Ingeborg by their foster-father Hilding. Both Beli and �orsteinn died in war whereupon Helgi and Halfdan ruled the kingdom. The two kings were jealous of Frithjof's excellent qualities and so they refused to let him marry Ingeborg. When Frithjof returned he burnt down Baldr's temple and went away and became a Viking. After three years, he came to king Ring. Just before the old king died, Frithjof's identity was apparent to everybody and the dying king appointed Frithjof Earl and made him the care-taker of Ring and Ingeborg's child. When Ring died, Frithjof and Ingeborg married and he became the king of Ringerike. Then he declared war on Ingeborg's brothers killing one of them and making the second his vassal.

    On her journey through the deep forest, she sumbles upon the site of a grisly double murder--a crime that will remain unsolved for nearly twenty years, until the day Annie sees her grown daughter in the arms of one man she glimpsed in the forest that eerie midsummer night.Like Gorky Park and Smilla's Sense of Snow, Blackwater is a unique trhiller in which the hearts and minds of the characters are as strikingly compelling as the exotic northern landscape that envelops them.

    April Witch created a furor upon its original publication in Sweden. Addressing themes of mother-daughter relationships, competition between women, and the failures of Sweden's postwar welfare state, it is a thrillingly written and fascinating story.

    He brings the baby home, and he and his wife raise the girl in their basement. When a shocking and catastrophic incident occurs, the couple’s son Jerry whisks the girl away to Stockholm to start a new life. There, he enters her in a nationwide singing competition. Another young girl who’s never fit in sees the performance on TV, and a spark is struck that will ignite the most terrifying duo in modern fiction.

    Suddenly the island that once seemed so achingly familiar turns strange and dangerous… Until Julia finds herself facing truths she never imagined—about what really happened on that September day twenty years ago, about who may have crossed paths with little Jens in the fog, and how a child could truly vanish without a trace…until now.

    Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges - one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the island itself, with its mossy rocks, windswept firs and unpredictable seas.Full of brusque humour and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own experience and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of the novels she wrote for adults. This new edition sees the return of a European literary gem - fresh, authentic and deeply humane.

    A Visiting Professor of Swedish Literature at the University of Texas, quite uncoincidentally named Lars Gustafsson, is teaching a seminar in nineteenth-century European thought and quietly perfecting his game of tennis. His serenity is tested by a sudden series of bizarre events that turns The Tennis Players into a delightful romp through modern-day academe.

    In Chronicler of the Winds, he gives us something different: a beautifully crafted novel that is a testament to the power of storytelling itself. On the rooftop of a theater in an African port, a ten-year-old boy lies slowly dying of bullet wounds. He is Nelio, a leader of street kids, rumored to be a healer and a prophet, and possessed of a strangely ancient wisdom.One of the millions of poor people “forced to eat life raw,” Nelio tells his unforgettable story over the course of nine nights. After bandits cruelly raze his village, he joins the legions of abandoned children living in the city’s streets. An act of the imagination, an effort to prove to his comrades that life must be more than mere survival, cuts short Nelio’s life.Already published in thirteen countries, Chronicler of the Winds was shortlisted for the Nordic Council Prize for Literature and was nominated for the Swedish Publishers Association’s August Prize.

    THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM covers his childhood and education at the Cistercian monastry of Varnhem. There he is taught the best of spiritual and worldly learning, as well as being trained to become a master archer and swordsman by the giant Brother Guilbert, a former knight. At seventeen, equipped to become a monk or a warrior, Arn returns home, a young man and yet an innocent in the ways of the world. Two sisters cross his path: one seduces him, while with the other sister, Cecilia, he falls deeply in love. In loving two sisters he has committed a crime punishable by both civil and clerical authorities, and he is sentenced to serve 20 years as a Knight Templar in the Holy Land.

    . .Nombeko Mayeki was never meant to be a hero. Born in a Soweto shack, she seemed destined for a short, hard life. But now she is on the run from the world ‘s most ruthless secret service, with three Chinese sisters, twins who are officially one person and an elderly potato farmer. Oh, and the fate of the King of Sweden - and the world - rests on her shoulders.As uproariously funny as Jonas Jonasson’s bestselling debut, this is an entrancing tale of luck, love and international relations.

    Then she meets Jonas, who for the past two years has been keeping vigil beside his comatose girlfriend. Burdened with his own sinister history, he sees a chance to start afresh with Eva..Reminiscent of the work of Patricia Highsmith and Henning Mankell, Betrayal delves into the pain of deception and how our own destructive behavior can lead to consequences far beyond our control. Nominated Best Nordic Crime Novel in 2004 and a bestseller across the continent, "Betrayal" cements Karin Alvtegen's position in the top rank of European thriller writers.

    He writes lists, obsesses over the nature of time, and finds joy in bouncing balls--all in an effort to find out how best to live life. An utterly enchanting meditation on experience, Naive. Super was a #1 best-seller in Erlend Loe's native Norway.

    Restless and unable to sleep, she wanders through her parents' house, revisiting the scenes of her childhood. In a cupboard drawer, folded and pushed away from sight, she finds a sepia photograph of her grandmother, Hanna, whom she remembers as old and forbidding, a silent stranger enveloped in a huge pleated black dress. Now, looking at the features Anna recognises as her own, she realises she is looking at a different woman from the one of her memory. Set against the majestic isolation of the Scandinavian lakes and mountains, this is more than a story of three Swedish women. It is a moving testament of a time forgotten and an epic romance in every sense of the word.

    But so profound is this evening between them that when Unn inexplicably disappears, Siss's world is shattered. The Ice Palace is written in prose of a lyrical economy that ranks among the most memorable achievements of modern literature.

    This Nordic Prize-winning novel, a truly gripping epic, relates the lives of four generations of a unique and strange family with touching intimacy and surreal comedy.Traces four generations of a family marked by the untimely birth of Fred, a misfit and boxer conceived during a devastating rape who forges an unusual friendship with his younger half-brother, Barnum.