THE STREET

KAMMAKARGATAN – THE STREET

By Therese Bohman

THE STREET KAMMAKARGATAN lies still and quiet, almost deserted, even during the busiest hours of the week when the city is most crowded. Everyone is on Drottninggatan, weaving between its many shops, cafés, and restaurants. On Kammakargatan, there’s almost nothing. You only go there if you have a reason. For a few months in the fall of 1997, I had one.

SHE HAS JUST left the safety of her childhood home to begin a new life at Stockholm University. Her days are filled with nervousness, anticipation – and loneliness. She rents a small room, tries to find her place in the big city, and feels invisible in the lecture halls. That changes when she meets Andreas. He dresses in black, is blasé and confident. He also introduces her to a different Stockholm, a world of literary fanzines, smoky cafés, and late nights in an apartment on Kammakargatan. In the quiet mystery that lingers between the city crowds and the emptiness of Kammakargatan, a friendship begins to grow, one that will, in many ways, come to define her life. 

THERESE BOHMAN FIRST wrote The Street as an extended Christmas short story, shared as a literary advent calendar among a small circle of readers. It is a story that is part truth, part invention, and now, in a slightly revised form, it is published as a short novel in twenty-four chapters.