A MOTH TO A FLAME

A Moth to a Flame/A Burnt Child (Bränt barn, 1948). Translation by Benjamin Mier-Cruz. University of Minnesota Press, 2013, foreword by Per Olov Enquist. Preface by Siri Hustvedt, Penguin UK, 2018

After the international success of his collection of World War II newspaper articles, German Autumn – a book that solidified his status as the most promising and exciting writer in Sweden – Stig Dagerman was sent to France with an assignment to produce more in this journalistic style. But he could not write the much-awaited follow-up. Instead, he holed up in a small French village and in the summer of 1948 created what would be his most personal, poignant, and shocking novel: A Moth to A Burnt Child. The Swedish title is derived from a Swedish proverb. The 2018 Penguin edition uses A Moth to a Flame to better convey the content of the novel in English.

Set in a working-class neighborhood in Stockholm, the story revolves around a young man named Bengt who falls into deep, private turmoil with the unexpected death of his mother. As he struggles to cope with her loss, his despair slowly transforms to rage when he discovers his father had a mistress. But as Bengt swears revenge on behalf of his mother’s memory, he also finds himself drawn into a fevered and conflicted relationship with this woman – a turn that causes him to question his previous faith in morality, virtue, and fidelity.

Written in a taut and beautifully naturalistic tone, Dagerman illuminates the rich atmospheres of Bengt’s life, both internal and eternal: from his heartache and fury to the moody streets of Stockholm and the Hitchcockian shadows of tension and threat in the woods and waters of Sweden’s remote islands. A Moth to a Flame/ A Burnt Child remains Dagerman’s most widely read novel, both in Sweden and worldwide, and is one of the crowning works of his short but celebrated career.

Excerpt “Evening Promenades” published in Little Star 4 (2013).