Novel
Far och son: en komedi
Not translated into English
Jörn Donner · 1984
Synopsis
At the end of the fifties, Jakob Andersin, heir to a line of industrialists, has just married a woman whom he had been leaving and taking back for years and who is expecting a child. The young couple is cracking on all sides. The narrative is built from a manuscript that Jakob has left behind, and the absent father is its thread: Jakob's father, Jakob himself, and little Gunnar, who has just been born.
Context
It is the sixth independent volume of the great novel sequence devoted to the Andersin family, begun in 1974 and closed in 2001, which is held to be its author's major literary work. Jakob is said to be his double: the same death of the father, the same political choices. Rauno Ekholm's Finnish translation appeared from Otava in 1985, in 527 pages, and the sequence supplied in 1999 the material for a television series of twelve episodes. There is no French edition.
Who it is for
A novel of about five hundred pages, in Swedish. One needs to know a little of Cold War Finland to follow the debates that occupy it.
Prizes and reception
Finlandia Prize in 1985, awarded to this volume of the sequence of novels that its author devoted to the Andersin family.