ABOUT THE AUTHORS
STIG DAGERMAN (1923–1954) was regarded as the most talented young writer of the Swedish postwar generation. He grew up on a small farm in Älvkarleby, Sweden, and moved to Stockholm at the age of eleven. He published his first novel, The Snake, at twenty-two, and by the time he was twenty-six he had published four novels, a collection of short stories, a considerable volume of journalism, and four full-length plays. This body of work catapulted him to the forefront of Swedish letters in the 1940s, with critics comparing him to William Faulkner, Franz Kafka, and Albert Camus. He died at the age of thirty-one.
J. M. G. LE CLÉZIO, a French writer and professor, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2008.
LAURIE THOMPSON is an academic and translator living in Wales. He is former editor of the Swedish Book Review, and his many translations include works by Henning Mankell, Håkan Nesser, and Mikael Niemi.