”The Liljestrand should we keep our eyes on,” said a colleague sometime in the late 00’s and presented an open Sydsvenskan on our redaktionsbord. I don’t remember what the article was about, but I remember the tone: fun. This new writer had just made a literary debut with the short story collection ”Paris–Dakar”.
When I a morning, ten years later, will check at the diner where I’ll meet Jens Liljestrand, he was sitting and planning the next project. There will be a new biography of the Swedish author, but he does not want to reveal who it is.
– But this time it will be a woman, ” he says and slams shut his laptop.
his work on the Vilhelm Moberg, ”the Man in the woods”, which was nominated for the August prize in November. Where he tells us about the Moberg’s life, from the poor home in småland Moshultamåla to have ye offered and pugnacious place in the Swedish public sphere. And the style is the same: fun. For the knowledgeable bladvändarbiografin and their kulturartiklar in Expressen he is now DN’s addition, Lagercrantzen.
– People often think that criticism should be written in a special way. My starting point for everything I am writing is: now I’ll tell you something for you. It is, of course, if I had been at the Green party congress or ridden in the Race, but the same applies to the criticism. Then I tell what I think about a book. Criticism is the stories. I have always wanted to tell.
in Västervik, both his father and Danish mother was a doctor. When he was three years old, the family moved to Beira, Mozambique, for relief work. After his return they lived a few years in Uppsala, sweden before they settled down in Karlskrona.
I was for many, many years extremely afraid that it would become one of the me
The old militärstaden in the 80’s was not a happy place for Jens Liljestrand. Maskulinitetskulturen was strong and he was at times teased. It was not improved by the fact that he belonged to the city’s upper class.
– Class, culture and education is a strong identity in my family. We in the middle class or upper class speak rarely about the class, it is just too embarrassing, it is only in the working class that it is permissible to speak openly about their klasskänsla. But I am the fourth generation that graduated in our family, and learned early on that there was something nice to hot Liljestrand. My dad could say such things as ”the home of the us shall not be served liquor for we are such an important family,” and how silly it sounds today, it is, of course, such a man is affected by as little.
“I was for many, many years extremely afraid that it would be something of me,” he says. In his mid-30s, I was terrified.
”I’m still almost ridiculously grateful that I get to do it here,” says Jens Liljestrand. Photo: Alexander Mahmoud
in the student magazines and tried to get a foothold in the various lokalredaktioner.
” I was a tough bastard who call the editors with proposals. It was quite impossible. I just got no, no no. I got anxiety when I saw the new bylines to appear. Why was that not I? It was a horrible time, but today I’m glad for the experience.
It took five years before kulturchefen Rakel Chukri picked him up on Sydsvenskan.
” I’m still almost ridiculously grateful that I get to do it here. Still I write every article based on the feeling that I only get a single chance. I have to give everything.
” Yes, but I think it is a good idea to find sites where you can learn something new, get another perspective on the world. Since I have always been interested in exposing myself, just to see what happens. I have played a lot of theatre, singing, tested stand. My teacher at primary school said to my parents: Your son can not come to school in a usual way, he makes his entrance.
to be quite obrydd over to acknowledge the feelings that are embarrassing will Jens Liljestrand often hidden social mechanisms and tankefigurer – both in and outside of the world of culture.
” I think that I have a nudity which at the same time is very controlled. One of the first texts I wrote in the Expressen, was an open letter to Björn Ranelid where I asked him to apologize. I had once written to Ernst Brunner wrote that Björn Ranelid on viagra without even reading him. I had that so many others just tossed out me something bad about Ranelid.
He says he often gets very quiet when he writes his articles.
” I think I’m safe in my text. Or: This is where I am safe. I know I can write, where I can never be an underdog. And I have over the years taught me that the harder it is the better it will be.
a tv clip from a discussion on the flight where Jens Liljestrand goes hard to an increasingly paler Viggo Cavling, editor-in-chief of the resebranschens journal Travel News.
– We live in a time where I think it is important to take a stand, when it comes to climate, for example. It is also a time with very strongly politicized culture, where the works revolve a lot around values and ideology.
” What always attracted me with kulturjournalistiken is not a thing, but the whole. You can write a book of poems and then go to Medborgarplatsen and sleep on a mattress among the strikers of the afghans. And everything is kulturjournalistik.
In his diaries described Lagercrantz Moberg, so that I finally felt that I met him, with vindtygsblus and sandals.
“I don’t want to compare myself with him,” he says embarrassed.
But one of the “”big stakes,” he continues, ” was that he broadened the newspapers. Earlier, the urtråkiga reviews, which consisted of the long abstract and a short review. Lagercrantz began to describe how a work affected him – and what, in fact, that created the effect.
” His review of ”the Last letter to Sweden”, which closed the Utvandrarsviten, is the best analysis of the novel. He and Moberg were each other’s opposites, not least classwise, they had käbblat in decades and yet he could write so generously and insightfully.
”Vilhelm Moberg had thought that I would say no to this price! But that is not I, I thank you gladly yes”, says Jens Liljestrand. Photo: Alexander Mahmoud
the political path Lagercrantz brought kultursidan on. When the berlin Wall fell in 1989, it took two weeks before Lagercrantz even commented on it.
” I don’t think you need to be ashamed of their previous opinions, but as an intellectual you have to relate to them. Lagercrantz did not see the difference of democracy and dictatorship.
in Contrast, he says, to have had the great benefit of the Lagercrantz personbetraktare: ”Lagercrantz rumormonger of some skill is second to none.”
– There are so many romantic pictures of Moberg, a farmers son with folkviseögonen, but by Lagercrantz dagböckers it felt like I finally met him, with vindtygsblus and sandals.
Haha, he had thought that I would say no! But such is not I, I thank you gladly yes. So when he had demanded that I at least used the tacktalet to say a few word of truth.
