I’m talking to the Swedish writer, Agnes Lidbeck, in this special edition live episode of the Rippling Pages! We really did have a coffee with one of the world’s, one of Sweden’s most interesting writers, because as we were live in person with a live audience in Leeds!

Life is full of adjustments - perhaps there isn’t a bigger adjustment than having children. But what happens when you start to question your role in this adjustment? Crucially, what happens when a mother starts to question her role in this adjustment.

These are the questions at the heart of Agnes’s novel, SUPPORTING ACT, published by Peirene Press and translated by Nichola Smalley.

It’s a beautiful novel about fierce devotion in the face of fierce questions that need to be asked about why certain people seem to take on certain roles in society.

Agnes is the author of five novels, but this was her first novel, and it’s her first to be translated into English. She is a renowned name in Sweden on TV, radio, and Swedish letters. This book alone was the winner of the prestigious Bourous Debut Novel Prize.

This is part of Modern Culture’s programming of events called Stories from Sweden, so thanks to Martin Colthorpe for help making this happen.

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Rippling Points

0.15 introductions.
3.25 - Agnes time in Leeds
4.35 opening to the novel
6.05 - Agnes and Jens
10.05 - Agnes’s reading
14.00 - touch and tactility
17.10 - Swedish society and parental leave
19.50 - spiritual and physical pain of Anna.
22.00 - Jens and Ivan
24.25 - why is Ivan so compelling to Anna
27.15 - grips of passion
29.00 - rippling pages bookshop
30.15 - different modes of time
35.30 - Anna’s dark thoughts
38.15 - Agnes’s next book
40.45 - frustration and being kind to Anna
42.30 - a strange interaction in the street!
45.00 - questions from the audience - do you have a different relationship with Anna as a result of the translation
47.30 question from audience - is Anna a detached person, or detached as a result of motherhood.
49.00 - the power of translation

Reference Points

Hjalmar Söderberg
Baruch Spinoza
Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina
Annie Ernaux
Wretchedness - Andrzej Tichý (translated by Nichola Smalley)