Books from Sweden

Three Black women arrive in Stockholm, each hoping to build a better life, only to discover that the city’s reputation for equality conceals complicated realities of racism, privilege, and belonging. Kemi Adeyemi is a successful Nigerian American marketing executive recruited to help repair the reputation of a powerful Swedish company. Brittany-Rae Johnson, a Jamaican American former model turned flight attendant, finds herself drawn into a glamorous but unsettling relationship with the company’s wealthy CEO. Meanwhile, Muna Saheed, a Somali refugee who has lost her family, works as a cleaner while searching for security, connection, and a place to call home. Although their backgrounds and ambitions differ, their lives become intertwined through the same influential man. As each woman navigates the contradictions of Swedish society, she must confront the expectations imposed on her because of her race, gender, and social position. Through their intersecting stories, Åkerström explores the complexities of Black womanhood, the fetishization of Black women, workplace discrimination, and the difference between being welcomed into a society and truly belonging.

Everything Is Not Enough follows three Black women navigating ambition, relationships, and belonging in contemporary Stockholm. Kemi Adeyemi, a Nigerian-born marketing executive, has built a successful career but struggles with the emotional costs of her choices. Brittany-Rae Johnson, an American socialite, finds that wealth and privilege cannot protect her from personal turmoil. Meanwhile, Yasmiin Abdullahi, a Somali-Swedish entrepreneur, faces the challenges of balancing her cultural heritage with her professional ambitions and personal desires. As their lives intersect, the women confront the pressures of social expectations, the complexities of interracial relationships, and the inequalities that shape their experiences. Each must question what success means and whether the lives they have worked so hard to build truly fulfil them. Through interconnected stories of love, friendship, ambition, and self-discovery, Åkerström explores race, class, migration, and the search for belonging. The novel examines the tension between outward success and inner fulfilment, asking whether achieving everything society values is enough to create a meaningful life.

In The Colony, Emelie, exhausted by her demanding urban life, escapes to the Swedish countryside, where she encounters a mysterious group of seven people living together outside conventional society. Each member carries personal wounds, disappointments, or a desire to escape the expectations of the modern world. Their unusual community offers the possibility of a different way of living, built around shared responsibilities and distance from mainstream life. Yet as Emelie becomes more involved, the boundaries between freedom, belonging, and dependence grow increasingly complicated. Norlin examines the human longing for connection and the temptation to create an alternative society when existing structures feel unbearable. The novel asks whether a community can truly escape the inequalities and conflicts of the world it leaves behind.

A high fever sends an unnamed woman drifting through memories of the people who have shaped her life. When she opens an old book and discovers a message from Johanna, her former lover, the past begins to unfold through four intimate portraits of love, friendship, loss, and secrets. There is Johanna, now a famous television presenter; Niki, a friend who vanished without a trace; Alejandro, a passionate lover whose dreams collide with reality; and Birgitte, a troubled woman whose hidden pain remains difficult to understand. Each person returns with all the contradictions that made them unforgettable—and all the questions the narrator never managed to answer. In The Details, Ia Genberg explores how other people become part of our identity, leaving traces long after they have disappeared from our lives. Intimate, perceptive, and quietly moving, this slim novel asks a profound question: Do we ever truly know another person, or do we simply carry our own version of them? Winner of Sweden’s August Prize in 2022, the novel was shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize.

What a Time to Be Alive follows twenty-one-year-old Sickan Hermansson, a young woman who arrives at Stockholm University determined to reinvent herself. After a lonely childhood in a small Swedish town, marked by social exclusion and a lack of meaningful connections, she sees university as an opportunity to experience the things she has missed: friendship, intimacy, love, and the freedom to become someone new. Just as Sickan begins to find her place among a group of friends, she meets Abbe, a charming and confident young man who seems to offer the possibility of romance and belonging. Yet navigating relationships proves more complicated than she imagined, forcing her to confront her insecurities and the compromises she is willing to make to be accepted. With sensitivity and understated humor, Jenny Mustard explores loneliness, class, sexuality, and the pressures of young womanhood. The novel captures the awkwardness and intensity of early adulthood, asking how much of ourselves we are willing to change in the pursuit of love and acceptance.

Money can buy comfort, security, and freedom—but what happens when it begins to determine the value of our relationships? In Small Comfort, Ia Genberg brings together five interconnected stories populated by people whose lives are shaped by money, ambition, and self-deception. A former child star has become a struggling thief; an actor is hired to deliver a speech at a stranger’s wedding; and an estranged couple pretends to be happily married to secure an inheritance. Beneath these seemingly absurd situations lie uncomfortable questions about what people owe one another and what they are willing to sacrifice for financial gain. With sharp humour and an unflinching eye for human weakness, Genberg reveals how economic value seeps into our most intimate relationships, influencing the way we love, judge, and measure ourselves. Witty, surprising, and quietly unsettling, Small Comfort explores the strange bargains we make in pursuit of security and happiness. The English translation was longlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize.