Stig Into Turkish
by Halil Gôkhan, Writer and Editor of KAFEKÜLTÜR in IstanbulIf I remember correctly, the first time I heard Stig Dagerman`s name was in 2005 when I learnt that the Turkish writer and journalist Yasar Kemal had received an award from the Swedish Stig Dagerman Society. Kemal got this award in 1997 with the motivation that he had used […]
Self Deception In A BURNT CHILD
A question from a reader: “I just read A Burnt Child, and I have been thinking quite a lot about it. I can see that it is partly about self-deception but I can’t describe how properly. Could you possibly help me, by summarizing what in the book makes it clear that it is about self-deception?” Here is my […]
To Stig’s Memory Nov 4, 2014
by Lo Dagerman – preface to Chilean Mar y Tierra’s anniversary publication. Everything significant that I experience, all that fills my life with a sense of wonder—meeting with a lover, a caress on my skin, help in distress, eyes reflecting moonlight, sailing on the open sea, the joy a child inspires, a shiver in the […]
CRITIC’S BEST BOOK PICK 2014: Dagerman’s Short Fiction
Swedish book critic Stina Otterberg picks NATTENS LEKAR Collected short fiction by Stig Dagerman, preface by Colm Toíbín (Norstedts, 2014). DN.se 12/13/14 DAGERMAN’S RESISTANCE OFFERS CONSOLATION Review (excerpt translated by Lo Dagerman), DN.se 12/6/14 In these days of Nazi-flavored racism in the Swedish parliament*, we would like to summon Stig Dagerman from the dead to let his social commentary in […]
On Seeking And Offering Refuge
Flykten valde oss Fågeln väljer flykten. Vi valde den icke.Flykten valde oss. Därför är vi här.Ni som ej blev valda – men ändå frihet äger,hjälp oss att bära den tunga flykt vi bär! Bojan väljer foten. Vi valde att vandra.Natten var barmhärtig. Nu är vi här.Ni är för många, kanske den frie trygge säger.Kan […]
For One Day A Year, Let’s Make Believe….
In February 1953, Stig pens one of his daily occasional poems (Sw. dagsedlar) for publication in The Worker. He titles it One Day A Year. Very similar in tone to John Lennon’s Imagine. Stig’s poem is well-known in Sweden, inspiring, among other things, the Dagerman Award given annually by the Stig Dagerman Society (Read more). EN DAG OM ÅRET […]
Per Wästberg, Swedish Academy Chair, on Stig
There are perhaps only three contemporary Swedish authors of the highest caliber who have reached the wider world: the poets Gunnar Ekelöf and Tomas Tranströmer, and Stig Dagerman, who in spite of his death at 31 lives on in new editions and research, especially in France where he is considered a Nordic existentialist in the […]
Do We Have Faith in Humankind?
— Stig Dagerman, 1950. His response to a magazine question posed to six authors. To speak of humanity is to speak of oneself. In his relentless indictment of humanity at large, the individual himself is a part. Only death can separate him from his charges. So even as judge, he will always be found on the […]
In Defense of the Politics of the Impossible – The Case of World Citizens for Peace
La Politica dell’Impossibile, a well-received recent Italian collection of Stig Dagerman’s political articles (Iperborea, 2016). The following article from the collection is on The World Citizen movement for peace spearheaded by American Garry Davis. “Politics has been called the art of the possible. It is an apt epithet because that which is possible is what is the most reduced and circumscribed […]
“Wedding Worries and Other Upsets”
In this essay from 1950, Stig reflects on the writing of his novel Wedding Worries and his creative process at large . Stig with his grandparents at the farm ca 1931 Late one evening in 1931, I went into a stable loft on the farm in Älvkarleby in search of a lost kitten. It wasn’t there and […]