Three stories of books, with a staircase in the centre.
Libraries – a reader's treasure. Photo (Stockholm Public Library): Jann Lipka/imagebank.sweden.se

Books from Sweden – 10 must-reads

Swedish fiction is among the world’s most translated. Here are 10 books from Sweden – selected for you by Swedish Book Review.

(Make note: This list of books from Sweden is not a ranking – it’s a curated selection ordered alphabetically.)

1. Under the Storm, by Christoffer Carlsson

(Järtecken)
Translated by Rachel Willson Broyles (2024)

In the aftermath of a murder that rocks a rural community, the net quickly closes on one man. But was the right person convicted of the crime? In his bestselling novel, criminologist Christoffer Carlsson probes the ripple effects of crime, grief, violence and generational trauma, as told from two perspectives over the course of 20 years.

Combining a tightly woven cold-case mystery with perceptive, insightful character studies, this thoughtful, unsettling novel – one of the New York Times’ best crime novels of 2024 (so far) – is ideal reading for those looking for psychologically intense, slow-burn noir with a strong sense of place.

Portrait of a man to the left and the cover of a book entitled 'Under the Storm' to the right.
Christoffer Carlsson and his slow-burn crime novel, Under the Storm. Photo: Thron Ullberg and Hogarth

2. Femicide, by Pascal Engman

(Råttkungen)
Translated by Michael Gallagher (2022)

When detective Vanessa Frank is called to investigate the murder of a young woman found dead in an apartment in northern Stockholm, she is drawn into the murky world of incels, an online community united by a violent misogyny. Through complex, intersecting plot strands and a multifaceted cast of characters, Pascal Engman delivers a breathless and brutal urban thriller that engages with complex societal issues.

Winner of the British Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year 2023, Engman is a rising star in the genre. And this novel is an urgent – if at times uncomfortable – must-read for fans of hard-boiled, fast-paced suspense.

This is what happened when book-loving Swedes went to the supposedly closed library and borrowed books by themselves...

3. The Details, by Ia Genberg

(Detaljerna)
Translated by Kira Josefsson (2023)

In the throes of a high fever, a woman is revisited by key moments from her past, and the memories of those who have shaped it. Composed of four non-linear chapters, each a heartfelt, keenly drawn portrait of a formative earlier relationship, this short yet resonant novel builds to form a mesmeric account of a life as seen through its details.

Wistful and intimate, and written in a poetic, exhilarating prose, Ia Genberg’s international bestseller is an illuminating study of transience, memory and what it means to be human. Winner of Sweden’s prestigious August Prize (link in Swedish) in 2022, the novel was also shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize.

Portait of author Pascal Engman, who's behind an award-winning book from Sweden.

With Femicide, Pascal Engman won the British Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year 2023. Photo: Alexander Donka

Cover of the book 'The Details', by Ia Genberg. Portrait of Genberg to the right.

Ia Genberg was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2024 with The Details. Photos: Headline and Sara Mackey

Hanna Johansson's critically acclaimed debut Antiquity might make for some heady reading... Photos: Scribe and Lisa Thanner

Portait of author Pascal Engman, who's behind an award-winning book from Sweden.

With Femicide, Pascal Engman won the British Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year 2023. Photo: Alexander Donka

Cover of the book 'The Details', by Ia Genberg. Portrait of Genberg to the right.

Ia Genberg was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2024 with The Details. Photos: Headline and Sara Mackey

Hanna Johansson's critically acclaimed debut Antiquity might make for some heady reading... Photos: Scribe and Lisa Thanner

Portait of author Pascal Engman, who's behind an award-winning book from Sweden.

With Femicide, Pascal Engman won the British Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year 2023. Photo: Alexander Donka

Cover of the book 'The Details', by Ia Genberg. Portrait of Genberg to the right.

Ia Genberg was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2024 with The Details. Photos: Headline and Sara Mackey

Hanna Johansson's critically acclaimed debut Antiquity might make for some heady reading... Photos: Scribe and Lisa Thanner

4. Antiquity, by Hanna Johansson

(Antiken)
Translated by Kira Josefsson (2024)

In the sultry summer heat of a Greek island rich with ancient beauty, a lonely, unnamed, 30-something narrator seeks the companionship of Helena, an older artist whom she admires. But when she meets Helena’s teenage daughter Olga, her passions take a more dangerous path.

Described as a queer Lolita story, Hanna Johansson’s provocative, mesmeric debut delves into questions of desire, power and loneliness, and the narratives we build around our lives. Critically acclaimed in Sweden and abroad, it is a lushly sensual text that thrums with expectancy and a sense of impending ruin.

Portrait of a woman against a backdrop of green leaves.
Balsam Karam's The Singularity was shortlisted for the prestigious Swedish August Prize. Photo: Carla Orrego Veliz

5. The Singularity, by Balsam Karam

(Singulariteten)
Translated by Saskia Vogel (2024)

On a corniche in an unnamed coastal city home to many refugees, a pregnant tourist bears witness to a mother’s haunting, final act of despair. Circling back and forth from the tragic event that will irreparably bind these two women, Balsam Karam’s haunting, formally inventive second novel interweaves their distinct but overlapping histories of loss, displacement, motherhood and generational trauma.

One of the most interesting stylists of her generation, Karam writes with an inimitable, compassionate and at times breathtaking prose that formally echoes the disorientation of exile. The result is a devastating but urgent text that was shortlisted for Sweden’s prestigious August Prize (link in Swedish).

The cover of a book entitled "Stolen".
Ann-Helén Laestadius's Stolen has been made into a film. Photo: Bloomsbury Publishing

6. Stolen, by Ann-Helén Laestadius

(Stöld)
Translated by Rachel Willson Broyles (2023)
Ann-Helén Laestadius draws on real-life events to spin a gripping coming-of-age tale about a young Sámi woman in a reindeer-herding community in northern Sweden. When brutally pointed hate crimes are met with apathy from the local police force, young Elsa must take the struggle for justice into her own hands.

Infused with vivid depictions of Sámi culture, the novel is a nuanced, keenly observed portrait of an indigenous community grappling with injustice, prejudice, the pressures of contemporary society and the threats of a changing climate. But it is also the story of a young woman learning to live life on her own terms. Now a Netflix film.

Portrait of a woman in traditional Sami clothing.

Ann-Helén Laestadius draws on real-life events and her own Sami background in the novel Stolen. Photo: Carl-Johan Utsi

Portrait of Steve Sem-Sandberg

W by Steve Sem-Sandberg is a nuanced, technically dazzling examination of a troubled man in an age overshadowed by violence. Photo: Thron Ullberg

Portrait of a man leaning against a wall.

Alex Schulman's Malma Station is a piece of psychological suspense. Photo: Martin Cederblad

Portrait of author Karin Smirnoff stanging against a wall.

Karin Smirnoff is behind the seventh book in the beloved Millennium series, originally by Stieg Larsson. Photo: Thron Ullberg

Portrait of a woman in traditional Sami clothing.

Ann-Helén Laestadius draws on real-life events and her own Sami background in the novel Stolen. Photo: Carl-Johan Utsi

Portrait of Steve Sem-Sandberg

W by Steve Sem-Sandberg is a nuanced, technically dazzling examination of a troubled man in an age overshadowed by violence. Photo: Thron Ullberg

Portrait of a man leaning against a wall.

Alex Schulman's Malma Station is a piece of psychological suspense. Photo: Martin Cederblad

Portrait of author Karin Smirnoff stanging against a wall.

Karin Smirnoff is behind the seventh book in the beloved Millennium series, originally by Stieg Larsson. Photo: Thron Ullberg

Portrait of a woman in traditional Sami clothing.

Ann-Helén Laestadius draws on real-life events and her own Sami background in the novel Stolen. Photo: Carl-Johan Utsi

Portrait of Steve Sem-Sandberg

W by Steve Sem-Sandberg is a nuanced, technically dazzling examination of a troubled man in an age overshadowed by violence. Photo: Thron Ullberg

Portrait of a man leaning against a wall.

Alex Schulman's Malma Station is a piece of psychological suspense. Photo: Martin Cederblad

Portrait of author Karin Smirnoff stanging against a wall.

Karin Smirnoff is behind the seventh book in the beloved Millennium series, originally by Stieg Larsson. Photo: Thron Ullberg

7. To Cook a Bear, by Mikael Niemi

(Koka björn)
Translated by Deborah Bragan-Turner (2020/2021)

It is the summer of 1852 in a small village in Sweden’s far north. Jussi, a young Sami boy fleeing an abusive home, is taken in by kind and charismatic Revivalist preacher Lars Levi Læstadius. Jussi becomes Læstadius’ eager disciple. When a spate of murders strike the inward-looking community, Jussi assists the preacher in unmasking the true predator.

This rich and evocative novel is narrated with an endearing rawness and charm. It captures a small rural community on the cusp of modernity, mixing a compelling murder mystery with musings on philosophy, natural science and religion. The subject of a forthcoming Disney+ series, this is a book to savour.

A cover of 'To cook a bear': a light background with an illustration of a brown bear and text on. A book from Sweden.
To Cook a Bear is set in the very north of Sweden, where author Mikael Niemi is also from. Photo: MacLehose Press

8. Malma Station, by Alex Schulman

(Malma Station)
Translated by Rachel Willson Broyles (2024)

Alex Schulman returns with a delicate, deftly plotted piece of psychological suspense that traces the complex threads of family dysfunction. Travelling through Sweden’s stark summer landscape, a train bound for the eponymous Malma Station carries on it the novel’s protagonists: a couple in crisis, a single father and his young daughter, and a woman seeking to solve an enduring mystery left by her mother.

As the journey unfolds, in Schulman’s engaging, sensitively hewn prose, their connections – and the reasons for their journeys – gradually become clear. A moving, magnetic novel about a search for truth, the scars we carry within us, and those that we inherit.

...and here are 5 Swedish classics

  • Crisis (Kris) by Karin Boye; translated by Amanda Doxtater (2020)
  • Witches’ Rings (Häxringarna, The Women and the City quartet) by Kerstin Ekman; translated by Linda Schenck (2021)
  • Gösta Berling’s Saga (Gösta Berlings saga) by Selma Lagerlöf; translated by Paul Norlen (2009)
  • The Red Room (Röda rummet) by August Strindberg; translated by Peter Graves (2009)
  • Doctor Glas (Doktor Glas) by Hjalmar Söderberg; translated by Paul Britten Austin (1963, reprinted 2019)

9. W., by Steve Sem-Sandberg

(W)
Translated by Saskia Vogel (2022)

In this internationally acclaimed novel, Steve Sem-Sandberg masterfully pieces together the life of Johan Christian Woyzeck – a former soldier who killed the woman he claimed to love, and the subject of Georg Büchner's ground-breaking unfinished play from 1836. Making use of archive and documentary material, Sem-Sandberg explores the life and inner turmoil of Woyzeck, and the unjust society that created him.

The result is a nuanced, technically dazzling examination of a troubled man in an age overshadowed by violence. This is raw, complex, and often harrowing subject matter, but Sem-Sandberg delivers it in a spellbinding, image-rich prose with a strong moral anchoring.

Interview with Swedish author Karin Smirnoff

10. The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons, by Karin Smirnoff

(Havsörnens skrik)
Translated by Sarah Death (2023)

Lisbeth Salander is back, in this seventh instalment in the Millennium series, originally by Stieg Larsson – beloved books from Sweden. Taking up the mantle from where David Lagercrantz left off, Karin Smirnoff relocates the action to Sweden’s northernmost county of Norbotten. Ruthless developers are rushing to cash in on the area’s untapped natural resources. Salander and longtime collaborator Mikael Blomkvist soon find themselves embroiled in an intricate web of corruption, conspiracy and environmental exploitation.

Packed with the high-stakes thrills and social commentary that fans of the series hold dear, Smirnoff nevertheless brings a fresh style and perspective to the franchise, coaxing out new sides to Scandi noir’s favourite heroine.