books review

John Burnside & Klas Östergren

Edinburgh International Book Festival/ Meeting Sweden

Poisoned landscapes and apocalyptic visions of the future, the fiction of John Burnside and Klas Östergren is hard-hitting stuff. As part of an outreach between Scotland and Sweden, they each read from their latest novels, Östergren giving us a sample of his “strange language” (followed by a translation), before launching into a discussion of the ideas and inspirations behind the books. Poet-turned-novelist Burnside blends fact and fiction to re-imagine Fife in a state of escalating environmental degradation, while Östergren, professorial in his manner, has returned to the tragic narratives of Norse myth and transposed them into a bleak future, where all the books have been burnt and omens of catastrophe threaten. Age-old themes revisited, and cast in new light.

23 Aug, 2.30pm

published: Sep-2009

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