Sunday, November 22, 2015
WINDSOR HOTEL
If any of my real or potential readeres or publishers should happen to be in Cairo the next few days, don't hesitate to visit me at the marvellous Windsor Hotel. I'll be at the bar all day until Thursday. Cheers.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
FIONA GRAHAM IN SBR
The translator Fiona Graham recently wrote a flattering review of The Alchemist's Daughter:
"Edenborg, whose doctoral thesis dealt with the history of alchemy, writes convincingly of its occult rituals. More generally, he successfully conjures up the sights, sounds and smells of late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century Europe, bringing scenes and individuals to vigorous life. This is a ripping yarn with a difference; while its premise may seem preposterous in an age when alchemy has long been discredited, it may well prompt the more melancholy reader to reflect seriously on whether the Drakenstiernas’ Manichaean view of the world we live in is really so far-fetched."
Read the whole text in the Swedish Book Review.
"Edenborg, whose doctoral thesis dealt with the history of alchemy, writes convincingly of its occult rituals. More generally, he successfully conjures up the sights, sounds and smells of late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century Europe, bringing scenes and individuals to vigorous life. This is a ripping yarn with a difference; while its premise may seem preposterous in an age when alchemy has long been discredited, it may well prompt the more melancholy reader to reflect seriously on whether the Drakenstiernas’ Manichaean view of the world we live in is really so far-fetched."
Read the whole text in the Swedish Book Review.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
PRESENTATION IN BOLOGNA
If you happen to attend the cultural festival "Cuore di Ghiaccio" in Bologna, please don't hesitate to listen to my translator Luca Vaccari being interviewed by the theatre and music expert Giordano Montecchi about my novel Händel e un destino perverso.
They will have 45 minutes to discuss my novel. The event takes place on August 1st, at 19:00 at the Teatri di Vita.
I'm really excited and wish I could be there!
This is how the seminar is described in the program:
"Quali perversioni si celano dietro l’angelica ispirazione musicale di Georg Friedrich Händel, il più grande compositore barocco del Settecento? Quale tipo di passione divorava il grande compositore, che andava in estasi di fronte ai ragazzi, o meglio ai cantanti castrati? Norra Skane ha definito il romanzo “Händel e un destino perverso” di Carl-Michael Edenborg “una vera orgia attraverso la sensualità di Händel, scritta in una prosa elegante e a tratti straordinariamente brillante, che dà una marcia in più al tocco spesso grottesco”…"
"What perversions lie behind the angelic musical inspiration of Georg Friedrich Handel, the greatest Baroque composer of the eighteenth century? What kind of passion devoured the great composer, who was in ecstasy in front of the boys of which the best singers were castrated? The newspaper Norra Skane has called Edenborg's novel Händel e un destino perverso "a real orgy through the sensuality of Händel, written in an elegant and sometimes extraordinarily brilliant prose, which gives an edge to the often grotesque story"..."
Read more about the seminar here:
http://agenda.comune.bologna.it/cultura/haendel-e-un-destino-perverso
And good luck, my dear translator Luca Vaccari!
They will have 45 minutes to discuss my novel. The event takes place on August 1st, at 19:00 at the Teatri di Vita.
I'm really excited and wish I could be there!
This is how the seminar is described in the program:
"Quali perversioni si celano dietro l’angelica ispirazione musicale di Georg Friedrich Händel, il più grande compositore barocco del Settecento? Quale tipo di passione divorava il grande compositore, che andava in estasi di fronte ai ragazzi, o meglio ai cantanti castrati? Norra Skane ha definito il romanzo “Händel e un destino perverso” di Carl-Michael Edenborg “una vera orgia attraverso la sensualità di Händel, scritta in una prosa elegante e a tratti straordinariamente brillante, che dà una marcia in più al tocco spesso grottesco”…"
"What perversions lie behind the angelic musical inspiration of Georg Friedrich Handel, the greatest Baroque composer of the eighteenth century? What kind of passion devoured the great composer, who was in ecstasy in front of the boys of which the best singers were castrated? The newspaper Norra Skane has called Edenborg's novel Händel e un destino perverso "a real orgy through the sensuality of Händel, written in an elegant and sometimes extraordinarily brilliant prose, which gives an edge to the often grotesque story"..."
Read more about the seminar here:
http://agenda.comune.bologna.it/cultura/haendel-e-un-destino-perverso
And good luck, my dear translator Luca Vaccari!
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
HÄNDEL IN TURIN
Finally, the publisher has officially released Händel: un destino perverso, Luca Vaccari's brilliant translation of my novel, an historical fantasy about the composer Georg Friedrich Händel, Mitt grymma öde, that was released by Natur och kultur in 2012.
Here is a snapshot from Turin:
Here is a snapshot from Turin:
Saturday, April 4, 2015
THE FIRST ITALIAN REVIEW
A few weeks ago, Luca Vaccaris brilliant translation of Mitt grymma öde - "Händel e un destino perverso" - was published by Imprimatur editore. Now, to my great joy, the first review of the novel has arrived.
Katia Ciarrocchi writes very flatteringly in Lib(e)ro Libro:
"Your whole being is engaged when you read, hear and experience the paragraphs in Händel e un destino perverso, a 335 pages book that enabled me to (re)discover Händel in all his glory."
"Carl Michael Edenborg's mastery shows not only in his description of the composer's life, but also when he colors and enrichens the paragraphs with growing bustling steps in the important moments in the musical formation of the composer."
Ciarrocchi ends her review with these enthusiastic words:
"According to Norra Skåne, Händel e un destino perverso is a 'orgy in the sexuality of Händel'. I totally agree. It's a book that enchants you and transports you beyond words. A book where the music takes possession of the soul and your limbs enjoy every vibration."
(Thanks Luca Vaccari for help with the translation.)
Katia Ciarrocchi writes very flatteringly in Lib(e)ro Libro:
"Your whole being is engaged when you read, hear and experience the paragraphs in Händel e un destino perverso, a 335 pages book that enabled me to (re)discover Händel in all his glory."
"Carl Michael Edenborg's mastery shows not only in his description of the composer's life, but also when he colors and enrichens the paragraphs with growing bustling steps in the important moments in the musical formation of the composer."
Ciarrocchi ends her review with these enthusiastic words:
"According to Norra Skåne, Händel e un destino perverso is a 'orgy in the sexuality of Händel'. I totally agree. It's a book that enchants you and transports you beyond words. A book where the music takes possession of the soul and your limbs enjoy every vibration."
(Thanks Luca Vaccari for help with the translation.)
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
HÄNDEL IN ITALIAN
As I'm writing this, the Imprimatur Editore in Reggio Emilia is publishing the italian
translation of my historical fantasy about Händel: Händel e un destino perverso. The
translation is made by Luca Vaccari. The work is available both on paper
and as an ebook. I'm very much looking forward to the reviews, and I
hope my text will interest the readers as much as it did when it was
published in Sweden in 2012!
(The translator Luca Vaccari with the italian and swedish editions)
Thursday, January 29, 2015
PAST THE LIMIT AND OTHER EROTIC STORIES
As some may have noticed, it did not take more than four months after the Alchemist's daughter (Alkemistens dotter, Natur & kultur) was presented and to my pride became an August Prize Nominee in October 2014, before my next book appeared; this time a collection of erotic short stories, published by Xtory, an imprint of Linds förlag.
Past the limit and other erotic stories (Över gränsen och andra erotiska noveller) contains 13 stories that range from classic left-hand literature to hysteric writing, from absurdist slapstick to realistic but unheimlich descriptions of everyday life sex, depending, of course, on the reader's mood and taste. Among them you also find a piece of my own fan fiction: when I describe what really happened when Rebis and Andreas (from The Alchemist's daughter) go to bed.
These short stories are the funniest and indeed most personal texts I've worked with in several years. I wrote them during an intense period in the hot summer of 2014; often they had their origin in one or another tale I improvised for friend's entertainment in a orgiastic setting. But in a couple of cases the ideas came from others.
Unlike writing a novel, there is a liberating ease in working with these short texts which are not filled up with characters and where dramaturgy and choreography do not be as complicated as in a 400 pages long adventure.
As for the media reception, there have been two paper reviews and two blog reviews. The paper reviews are diametrically opposed: the critic Camilla Carnmo passionately loves the book (Kristianstadsbladet), while the critic Tim Andersson absolutely loathes it (in UNT, his text is unfortunately, not on the Internet), even finding some cryptoracist themes in it.
Here are a few samples:
Camilla Carnmo: "I read and I get aroused. But that's not the only thing I like about this book. / It's nice that men and women fuck each other, indiscriminately. The desire is directed in different directions, the power structure is in motion. Men may be objects of women's judgment and laudatory glances. But it's certainly not "equality pedagogics,". This is not texts without balls, but they assume that every individual is horny and equally strong, and there is humor, as in the dialogue-based story about the football team, where players jerk and cheer each other with classic football jargon. (---) but it shows nevertheless that it is a "real" writer (one who can write on a more advanced literary level than is usual in the genre) that have been the creator. Even that's exciting. "
Tim Andersson: "Rather than meeting an explosive parapornography you are confronted with old-style garbage-sorted welfare state porn (though of course supplemented by more gazes than the heterosexual male). (---) Even more difficult to digest is the fact that the degree of people's attraction over and over again is produced in direct relation to the absence of pigment in their skin. (---) The book is easy to swallow, but afterwards you would prefer to spit it out. "
As for the blog reviews, they are more ambivalent For the blogger Bookworm, the reading experience was somewhat mixed but basically exciting:
"And it works. It's exciting. And even if not all the stories are in my taste, many of them are. And none of them disgusts me which could easily have been the case. It's a difficult balance to write about sex so that it becomes enticing and arousing rather than off-putting and disgusting. (---) It starts fine. The short story about the male life drawing model sets the tone. "
I was particularly glad over the brilliant Björn Kohlströms (Bernurs) close critical reading of the collection, which also suggests that one could call a "mysterious" (or in his words "transcendent") tendency in many of the stories, a perspective that is highly important in all my writings:
"The risk is well that the fun takes over - however, some of the short stories hint at something unheimlich, and we even find a dark figure in the corner, something monstrous that seems to have housed there since Lovecraft wrote his lugubrious work. An evil foreboding is planted here and there, with a touch of anxiety, and this is probably a necessary ingredient, otherwise the texts threaten to become too much cute clothes' fetishism, with a lot of knee-high socks and other paraphernalia to be used up. (---) Nevertheless: the imagination is the last word, and these short stories clearly show the important function of imagination, both in literature and in the themes embodied in these stories. (---) should I try to find a common theme, it would be transcendence, where eroticism is used as a method to lift the individual from a height that must be described as bliss."
I'm looking forward to more responses -and of course hearing from interested foreign publishers. It is not common for an established (have I become such a thing? Yes, probably...) author to put his name on one of the lowest forms of genre literature. Hopefully, this will help more writers to dare.
(Över gränsen och andra erotiska noveller can be bought in hardcover, epub file and mp3, which I read myself. If you want to consider the rights, please contact me directly.)
Past the limit and other erotic stories (Över gränsen och andra erotiska noveller) contains 13 stories that range from classic left-hand literature to hysteric writing, from absurdist slapstick to realistic but unheimlich descriptions of everyday life sex, depending, of course, on the reader's mood and taste. Among them you also find a piece of my own fan fiction: when I describe what really happened when Rebis and Andreas (from The Alchemist's daughter) go to bed.
(The beautiful cover was made by my genius wife, Loka Kanarp.)
These short stories are the funniest and indeed most personal texts I've worked with in several years. I wrote them during an intense period in the hot summer of 2014; often they had their origin in one or another tale I improvised for friend's entertainment in a orgiastic setting. But in a couple of cases the ideas came from others.
Unlike writing a novel, there is a liberating ease in working with these short texts which are not filled up with characters and where dramaturgy and choreography do not be as complicated as in a 400 pages long adventure.
As for the media reception, there have been two paper reviews and two blog reviews. The paper reviews are diametrically opposed: the critic Camilla Carnmo passionately loves the book (Kristianstadsbladet), while the critic Tim Andersson absolutely loathes it (in UNT, his text is unfortunately, not on the Internet), even finding some cryptoracist themes in it.
Here are a few samples:
Camilla Carnmo: "I read and I get aroused. But that's not the only thing I like about this book. / It's nice that men and women fuck each other, indiscriminately. The desire is directed in different directions, the power structure is in motion. Men may be objects of women's judgment and laudatory glances. But it's certainly not "equality pedagogics,". This is not texts without balls, but they assume that every individual is horny and equally strong, and there is humor, as in the dialogue-based story about the football team, where players jerk and cheer each other with classic football jargon. (---) but it shows nevertheless that it is a "real" writer (one who can write on a more advanced literary level than is usual in the genre) that have been the creator. Even that's exciting. "
Tim Andersson: "Rather than meeting an explosive parapornography you are confronted with old-style garbage-sorted welfare state porn (though of course supplemented by more gazes than the heterosexual male). (---) Even more difficult to digest is the fact that the degree of people's attraction over and over again is produced in direct relation to the absence of pigment in their skin. (---) The book is easy to swallow, but afterwards you would prefer to spit it out. "
As for the blog reviews, they are more ambivalent For the blogger Bookworm, the reading experience was somewhat mixed but basically exciting:
"And it works. It's exciting. And even if not all the stories are in my taste, many of them are. And none of them disgusts me which could easily have been the case. It's a difficult balance to write about sex so that it becomes enticing and arousing rather than off-putting and disgusting. (---) It starts fine. The short story about the male life drawing model sets the tone. "
I was particularly glad over the brilliant Björn Kohlströms (Bernurs) close critical reading of the collection, which also suggests that one could call a "mysterious" (or in his words "transcendent") tendency in many of the stories, a perspective that is highly important in all my writings:
"The risk is well that the fun takes over - however, some of the short stories hint at something unheimlich, and we even find a dark figure in the corner, something monstrous that seems to have housed there since Lovecraft wrote his lugubrious work. An evil foreboding is planted here and there, with a touch of anxiety, and this is probably a necessary ingredient, otherwise the texts threaten to become too much cute clothes' fetishism, with a lot of knee-high socks and other paraphernalia to be used up. (---) Nevertheless: the imagination is the last word, and these short stories clearly show the important function of imagination, both in literature and in the themes embodied in these stories. (---) should I try to find a common theme, it would be transcendence, where eroticism is used as a method to lift the individual from a height that must be described as bliss."
I'm looking forward to more responses -and of course hearing from interested foreign publishers. It is not common for an established (have I become such a thing? Yes, probably...) author to put his name on one of the lowest forms of genre literature. Hopefully, this will help more writers to dare.
(Över gränsen och andra erotiska noveller can be bought in hardcover, epub file and mp3, which I read myself. If you want to consider the rights, please contact me directly.)
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