Revisited the historic café Ofvandahls in Uppsala, Sweden. The café, located at the same address since it first opened in 1878, was one of Karin Boye’s favourite hang-outs.
Karin Boye (1900-1941) was a Swedish poet and novelist whose suicide in 1941 reflected her tragic, bleak and depressing writing style. Internationally, Boye is regarded as one of the greatest Swedish poets of all time. She also wrote five novels whereof four were published in the 1930s. Apart from the collected poems, she is best known abroad for her last novel, KALLOCAIN, a psychological dystopia nightmare, which dealt with the same social science fiction themes as did George Orwell’s NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR. Indeed, KALLOCAIN, published in 1940, predated Orwell’s book by eight years.
"KALLOCAIN deserves to take a secure place in the literature of dystopia, among such novels as Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD and George Orwell’s NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR."
— Richard B. Vowles, Professor of Comparative Literature and Scandinavian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.
Revisiting the café Ofvandahls.
Two Karin Boye novels: ASTARTE (1931) and KALLOCAIN (1940).
Karin Boye (1900-1941). Poet and novelist.
