LIVE! Agnes Lidbeck and how to write about major adjustments and characters that frustrate us

Описание: I’m talking to the Swedish writer, Agnes Lidbeck, in this special edition live episode of the Rippling Pages! We really did have a coffee with one of the world’s, one of Sweden’s most interesting writers, because as we were live in person with a live audience in Leeds!



Life is full of adjustments - perhaps there isn’t a bigger adjustment than having children. But what happens when you start to question your role in this adjustment? Crucially, what happens when a mother starts to question her role in this adjustment. 



These are the questions at the heart of Agnes’s novel, SUPPORTING ACT, published by Peirene Press and translated by Nichola Smalley. 



It’s a beautiful novel about fierce devotion in the face of fierce questions that need to be asked about why certain people seem to take on certain roles in society.



Agnes is the author of five novels, but this was her first novel, and it’s her first to be translated into English. She is a renowned name in Sweden on TV, radio, and Swedish letters. This book alone was the winner of the prestigious Bourous Debut Novel Prize.



This is part of Modern Culture’s programming of events called Stories from Sweden, so thanks to Martin Colthorpe for help making this happen. 



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Rippling Points



0.15 introductions. 

3.25 - Agnes time in Leeds

4.35 opening to the novel

6.05 - Agnes and Jens

10.05 - Agnes’s reading 

14.00 - touch and tactility   

17.10 - Swedish society and parental leave

19.50 - spiritual and physical pain of Anna. 

22.00 - Jens and Ivan

24.25 - why is Ivan so compelling to Anna

27.15 - grips of passion  

29.00 - rippling pages bookshop 

30.15 - different modes of time 

35.30 - Anna’s dark thoughts 

38.15 - Agnes’s next book 

40.45 - frustration and being kind to Anna

42.30 - a strange interaction in the street!

45.00 - questions from the audience - do you have a different relationship with Anna as a result of the translation 

47.30 question from audience - is Anna a detached person, or detached as a result of motherhood.

49.00 - the power of translation 



Reference Points



Hjalmar Söderberg 

Baruch Spinoza 

Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina 

Annie Ernaux 

Wretchedness - Andrzej Tichý (translated by Nichola Smalley)