SWEDEN HISTORY AND POLITICS Eric Elstob Sweden: A Traveller's Historf (Boydell Press, UK). An introduction to Swedish history from the year dot, with useful chapters on art, architecture and cultural life. Alan Palmer BernadotteiMn Murray, UK). First English biography for over fifty years of Napoleon's marshal, later Sweden's King Karl Johan XIV. Lively but comprehensive for enthusiasts only. Michael Roberts The Early Vasas: A History ot Sweden 15231611 (CUP o). This logical and general account of the period is complemented by his more recent Gustavus Adolphus and the Rise of Sweden (English University Press o which, more briefly and enthusiastically, covers from 1612 to Gustavus' death in 1632, LITERATURE Sigrid Cambiichen Byron (Heinemann, UK). A highly regarded Swedish literan Cambiichen has taken as her starting point tl exhumation of the poet Byron's body by devote® in the 1930s developing this into a brilfem realised biography. Stig Dagerman The Games of (QuartetSalem House). Intense short ston» including an autobiographical piece, by a young writer who had written four novels, plays, short stories and travel sketches bV J time he was 26. He committed suicide m the age of 31. This is some of the best о work.? Robert Fulton, (trans.) Preparations for Flight (Fmest Books, UK). Eight Swedish short stones 11 the last 25 years, including two rare prose trom iMB RSHctrom. outings from the poet NiklasRSdstrom. p с Jersild 4 Living 5ou(Norvik Press). latest English translation of one of Sweden's best novelists, it's a social satire based around the "experiences" of an artificially produced, bodiless human brain floating in liquid. Entertaining, provocative reading. Sara Lidman Naboth's Stone (Norvik Press Dufourl. A novel set in 1880s Vasterbotten, in Sweden's far north, charting the lives of settlers and fanners as the industrial age and the railway approaches. Agneta Pleijel The Dog Star (Peter Owen, UK). By one of Sweden's leading writers, The Dog Star is the powerful tale of a young girl's approach to puberty. Pleijel's finest novel yet, full of fantasy and emotion. Clive Sinclair Augustus Rex (Andre Deutsch, UK). August Strindberg dies in 1912 and is then brought back to life by the Devil in 1960s Stockholm. Bawdy, imaginative and very funny treatment of Strindberg's welldocumented neuroses. Bent Soderberg The Mysterious Barricades (Peter Owen, UK). Leading Swedish novelist writes of the Mediterranean during the wars a part of the world he's lived in for over thirty years. Hjalmar Soderberg Short Stories (Norvik Press Dufour). Twentysix short stories from the stylish pen of SSderberg (18691941), Brief, ironic and eminently ripe for dipping into. August Strindberg Strindberg Plays: One (including The Father Miss Julie and The Ghost Sonata). Strindberg Plays: Two {The Dance of lu!' 1 Strongei] IMethuen. Motherly LovePariahThe First Warning lmbe, Lane Press).