यान हेनरिक स्वाह्न / Jan Henrik Swahn
Jan Henrik Swahn was born in 1959 in Lund; he grew up in Denmark, in Copenhagen, and from 1970 in Malmo. His first novel, I Can Stop a Sea, was published by Bonniers publishing house in 1986. Thus far he has written ten novels, all published by Bonniers, one of which has been translated into Russian and two into Greek and Hebrew. He often writes about marginalized people; alcoholics, the homeless, ‘crazy’ people, lonely people, old people – “but not in the typical way, if there is any (there are several). I’m called humorous”.
He was chief editor of Bonniers Literary Magazine from 1997-99. He has also worked as a bridge keeper and with children in need of special care. The last ten years he has worked as a volunteer with women whose background contains homelessness, prostitution, drugs, abuse of every kind. He speaks Swedish, Danish, French, Polish, a little Czech, German (after some beers), Greek and a little Arabic, as well as English. He has translated from Polish, Danish, English, French, Slovenian, Arabic and Greek into Swedish.
His novel The Money won the TCO Award, a prize given by The Swedish Central Organization of Salaried Employees (100 000 SEK) in 1997. The book was also nominated for Swedish Radio prize for the year’s best novel, and received an award from the Swedish Academy. In 2001 he received the literary prize of Goteborgs-Posten, the third biggest newspaper, a prestigious prize. The same year his novel The Wanderers was also nominated for the Swedish Radio prize for the year’s best novel. Perhaps most importantly, it was one of the five novels nominated for the August Price, maybe the only literary prize well known abroad. When published in Greek The Wanderers was on the short list for The Athens Price for Literature together with Martin Amis and Sarah Waters. In 2005 he was awarded the Sture Linnér prize for his latest novel and for his translations of Greek poetry. In the Frankfurt Book Fair catalogue, his style of writing and humor is compared with Hrabal and the films of Jiri Menzel; he has been called Sweden’s only eastern European writer.
His other novels are: The Damned Joy, Love and Adventure, All the Colors of the House, Beggars, The King of the Lingonberries, The Dragon Woman, and Manolis’ Mopeds.
Slowness. That’s what strikes you first of all. Time is caught up in the tiniest of objects here including the shaving brush. Time billows in your direction when you watch. An eternity of it. The one meditative text MANOLIS reminds of of is MR. PALOMAR by Calvino. The one thing that the reading experience does for you is to locate you in the present moment at the same time as it frees you of the pulverizing impact of time passing. MANOLIS is a text that gives you such a reading experience.