Collected Works
Lydia Sandgren
Jan 2023 · Astra Publishing House
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608
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About this ebook
A compelling mystery, a poignant bildungsroman, and a work of great nostalgia for times just past, COLLECTED WORKS is a novel about love, power and art—and what leads us to make the pivotal decisions that change the course of our lives.
Martin Berg's wife, Cecilia, disappeared years ago. His memories of their carefree college days seem ever out-of-reach, and the intellectual curiosities that once made him the object of her desire have given way to mid-life uncertainty. The methodical and quiet life he’s made for himself and his adult children couldn’t be further from the one he dreamed of in his youth, when the manuscripts lying around his apartment were flush with promise and the ailing publishing house he runs was still new. Perhaps nothing reminds Martin of these failures more than his friend Gustav Becker, a wildly successful painter who’s returned to Gothenburg on the eve of his career-defining retrospective.
Gustav, meanwhile, is hurting too. His obsession with Cecilia’s inexplicable disappearance had made his art hagiographic, fixated on her image. When posters for Gustav’s retrospective plaster Cecilia’s face on major billboards across the city, Martin’s daughter Rakel learns a haunting fact that points toward her mother’s whereabouts. She and her brother chase this clue across time, memory, and Europe, to discover why their beloved mother abandoned her family, with the imagined hope that the question of what makes a person can ever be answered.
COLLECTED WORKS, a major hit in Sweden, sold over 100,000 copies in its first year in print, instantly making Lydia Sandgren a literary sensation. Winner of the 2020 August Prize for Fiction, the novel is set to publish in 17 territories.
Martin Berg's wife, Cecilia, disappeared years ago. His memories of their carefree college days seem ever out-of-reach, and the intellectual curiosities that once made him the object of her desire have given way to mid-life uncertainty. The methodical and quiet life he’s made for himself and his adult children couldn’t be further from the one he dreamed of in his youth, when the manuscripts lying around his apartment were flush with promise and the ailing publishing house he runs was still new. Perhaps nothing reminds Martin of these failures more than his friend Gustav Becker, a wildly successful painter who’s returned to Gothenburg on the eve of his career-defining retrospective.
Gustav, meanwhile, is hurting too. His obsession with Cecilia’s inexplicable disappearance had made his art hagiographic, fixated on her image. When posters for Gustav’s retrospective plaster Cecilia’s face on major billboards across the city, Martin’s daughter Rakel learns a haunting fact that points toward her mother’s whereabouts. She and her brother chase this clue across time, memory, and Europe, to discover why their beloved mother abandoned her family, with the imagined hope that the question of what makes a person can ever be answered.
COLLECTED WORKS, a major hit in Sweden, sold over 100,000 copies in its first year in print, instantly making Lydia Sandgren a literary sensation. Winner of the 2020 August Prize for Fiction, the novel is set to publish in 17 territories.
A compelling mystery, a poignant bildungsroman, and a work of great nostalgia for times just past, COLLECTED WORKS is a novel about love, power and art—and what leads us to make the pivotal decisions that change the course of our lives.
Martin Berg's wife, Cecilia, disappeared years ago. His mem...
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About the author
Lydia Sandgren (b. 1987) is the eldest of seven siblings brought up in the west of Sweden. She has studied music and philosophy, and is a practicing psychologist today, living in Gothenburg, Sweden. Collected Works is her debut novel.
Agnes Broomé is a literary translator and academic in Scandinavian at Harvard University. With a PhD in Translation Studies, her translations include August Prize winners The Expedition by Bea Uusma, The Gospel of Eels by Patrik Svensson, and Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren.
Agnes Broomé is a literary translator and academic in Scandinavian at Harvard University. With a PhD in Translation Studies, her translations include August Prize winners The Expedition by Bea Uusma, The Gospel of Eels by Patrik Svensson, and Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren.
Lydia Sandgren (b. 1987) is the eldest of seven siblings brought up in the west of Sweden. She has studied music and philosophy, and is a practicing psychologist today, living in Gothenburg, Sweden. Collected Works is her debut novel.
Agnes Broomé is a literary translator and academic in Scandin...
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