John Ajvide Lindqvist

Today (September 9th, 2025) marks the release of The Swine, a brand-new horror novella from John Ajvide Lindqvist – Sweden’s undisputed master of the macabre.

For readers who delight in the disturbing, The Swine is a chilling, unflinching descent into what Ajvide Lindqvist himself has described as “Hillbilly Horror”, a brutal, grotesque, and deeply unsettling ride that only he could deliver. But it’s also very, very funny, if you have… let’s say, a particular sense of humour.

Those of us who know our horror have an inkling of what’s coming, and Ajvide Lindqvist doesn’t disappoint the fans. This is definitely not for everyone. Some will probably find this novella far too violent and disturbing. But if you like your “Hillbilly Horror”, you’re guaranteed to love this. The Swine is a gem of its genre – funny, scary, and brutal. Just the way it should be. 5/5.
– BTJ

AFTER A GIG at yet another mall opening, the dance orchestra Tropico’s tour bus is hijacked by two pig farmers, a brother and a sister, who claim to be the band’s “biggest fans”. At gunpoint, and with the aid of an electric pig prodder, the bus is driven to the siblings’ dilapidated pig farm, and there the nightmare begins.

ALL MEMBERS OF the band except for the lead singer, the washed-up charmer Roland, are chained in the pen together with twenty big, hungry pigs. For Roland, the siblings have other plans. They want a child, and who could be a more suitable father than their great idol? Both siblings are grotesque, and it takes both force-feeding with Kamagra gel and desperate fantasies about wholesome childhood TV icons for Roland to, as they put it, “get a twitch in his tinkle.”

JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST, internationally acclaimed for modern horror classics such as Let the Right One In and Handling the Undead, continues to prove that he is a master at twisting the ordinary into the terrifying. With The Swine, he once again challenges the boundaries of the genre, leaving readers both horrified and enthralled.