Anne Swärd had an inspiring and fascinating conversation with Sigrid Combüchen and Gabriella Håkansson at Malmö Stadsbibliotek Tuesday the 20th of February. You can now listen to the conversation here.

Anne Swärd debuted in 2003 with Polarsommar (Arctic Summer), a dark and poetic debut for which she received a August Prize nomination. Her latest book Vera came out in Sweden last year. It’s an epic love story that crosses the barriers of time and territories. It’s a novel about mothers and daughters and guilt so strong it can be inherited through generations.

Sigrid Combüchen is an August Prize winning author. Her latest novel Sidonie & Nathalie is a suggestive yet radiant story about the ultimatums of exile and survival.

Parallells can be drawn between Vera and Sidonie & Nathalie: both novels take place during the 1940s, a time in history marked by the war, and the thematic of escape that mirrors our own presence. The two writers met in Stadsbiblioteket in Malmö to discuss this together with Gabriella Håkansson.