for Sweden, trial by fire

“And the forest will burn under our feet” (Aven om allt tar slut), by Jens Liljestrand, translated from Swedish by Anna Postel, Otherwise, 528 p., €24.90, digital €17.

When asked why he writes about the climate, Swedish journalist and literary critic Jens Liljestrand (b. 1974) consistently replies: “Can we write about something else? » And when it is pointed out to him that this subject is already in the news all over the world, he adds, in the Swedish daily Expressenwhich few stories express “how people really feel”. This is why this author of remarkable reports decided to take up the challenge, by means of fiction. And the forest will burn under our feet, his second novel, the first translated in France, is an openly militant book. He seeks to put literature at the service of a cause, one which, in the eyes of the author, should henceforth prevail over all others.

desolate scene

Due to its geographical location, Sweden has long been relatively unaffected by global warming. But, in 2014 and 2018, two major episodes of forest fires reminded its inhabitants of the extent of the danger. We find echoes of this in the novel: the center of the country is ravaged by flames, people flee, invade Stockholm and its surroundings, the infrastructures collapse, the authorities are overwhelmed, social cohesion is no more than a memory, and ties break, even within families.

On this desolate stage, Liljestrand casts four characters – a media consultant, his teenage daughter, an influencer dreaming of being a writer, and the (daddy’s) son of a famous sportsman – whose behaviors illustrate a range of possible attitudes, from resigned skepticism to hedonistic indifference, passing through courage, indignation, anger or cowardice.

Decryption: Fires: eight times more area burned than an ordinary year in France, four times more in Europe

Liljestrand’s feverish, often elliptical writing, combined with a fragmented composition, punctuated by multiple leaps in time and space, has here the effect of a gigantic collage of snapshots. A zigzag construction that skillfully accentuates the impression of the apocalypse, where the characters flee the disaster sites, retrace their steps, get lost, find each other again… Individual initiative seems derisory compared to the scale of the disaster. And collective action is difficult to put in place, when it does not end in a stampede.

“Nobody for nobody”

“Try to be interested in something. Something other than yourself. » This injunction issued by one protagonist to another falls into the void, so much has individual egoism been transformed into a social norm, the “every man for himself” having turned to “person for person”. And the media consultant to remain, despite everything, more concerned about his tweets than about the fate of his loved ones.

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