“Subtitled ‘A novel from the 21st century’, like other books in the genre it depicts a totalitarian future that is really a warning about the dangers of the present day.” McDuff describes it as “a vision of enslaved humanity, an allegory dream-like and grotesque, yet instantly recognizable to anyone then living through the international crisis… A dystopian novel, in which she portrayed not only earth-shaking world events, but also their destructive effects on individual human beings.” Too much maybe, as she put an end to her life a year after the publication of Kallocain. It did remind me of We, by Russian author Yevgenyi Zamyatin.Īctually, in many aspects, Swedish author Karin Boye was really ahead of her time. Indeed, inspired by the author’s eye-opening trips to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, it has a lot of elements common with 1984, but it was written eight years earlier! It helped me appreciate how the book resonated with important themes in the author’s life, and how unique and remarkable this book was, among her other works, in the Swedish literature of the time, and for science-fiction literature in general. The edition I read it in has an excellent introduction by the translator, David McDuff. Translated from the Swedish by David McDuffĭystopia / Science fiction / Swedish literature Kallocain: A novel from the 21st century, It turned out to be an amazing discovery. I had originally planned to read two books, but How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (by Adler) has been republished since, with several additions, and I could not find the 1940 text. This week is very busy and I don’t have time to recap all the books published in 1940 that I have already read. For several years Simon, at Stuck in a Book, has been organizing club year events, usually in April and October, in which he encourages everybody to read books published in the same year.
0 kommentar(er)
