November Blog

There was a time when visitors to Sweden marveled at how clean it was everywhere. No cigarette butts or wrappers on the pavement and no garbage or abandoned cars out in nature. Sad to say this is no longer true.

Similarly when I was young there were no homeless people in Sweden, except for a vagrant or two who rejected the nice apartments they were offered by the social services, choosing to live a freer life instead. Now this has changed too, and in Stockholm I see people digging into garbage cans in search of cans and bottles.

Now besides this anecdotal evidence, I also have the statistics. There are between 3 100 and 3 200 homeless people in Stockholm. Almost a quarter of them are women.

In these tough economic times the Department for the Homeless in Stock-holm is dealing with 30 percent more clients, at a time when it is facing a million kronor cutback in its budget. It is a terrible dilemma says one of the social workers as the clients "have nothing, no money, no food, nowhere to live and hardly any clothes".

The concept of homelessness is no longer foreign to Swedes and this is evident in the psychological thriller Missing that we wrote about in SwedenNow the other month. The book is by Karin Alvtegen and the main character is a homeless woman by the name Sybilla in Stockholm.

"Born into a life of privilege, Sybilla has spent the past many years opting instead to live on the streets of Stockholm, cadging a bed, a bath, a meal, where she can. Her favorite technique - one she permits herself only as a special treat - plays out at the Grand Hotel, where with luck and persistence, she can usually charm a lonely visiting businessman into buying her a dinner and a room for the night."

This is a fascinating read where you follow the fate of a woman who has been sheltered by her anonymity but who suddenly becomes the most wanted person in Sweden after the businessman whom she has lured at the Grand Hotel is murdered.

Besides being full of suspense, Missing presents a very real-life picture, survival techniques and all, of a homeless person in the Swedish capital.

Have a nice November!

Anders

October Blog

The October issue of Swedish Press is traditionally our car issue where we take a closer look at the new Volvo and Saab models. As far as I can remember both Volvo and Saab have also always advertised in this issue. This year things are different and it does not come as a big surprise, what with the turbulence in the automotive industry. Hopefully by next year there will be some clarity in the ownership of both the Swedish cars and we can look forward to having them back as advertisers. In the meantime there are exciting things happening at Saab and Volvo, the economic crisis not withstanding, that you can read about on page 13.

With declining advertising, we have space for more reader service. This month we bring you the new baking book by Swedish TV chef Leila Lindholm whom you can read about on page 37. We are also offering for sale my book God Jul, about Swedish Christmas as seen through old Christmas cards.

God Jul was first published by Bonniers in Stockholm in 1978, so I was both surprised and delighted when Skyhorse Publishing in New York asked for my permission to publish it in English. I was a bit concerned about the reproduction as the films for the original book are long gone in this age of digital printing. But the printers in China have done a masterful job of scanning in all the beautiful cards and I have not found any mistakes in the typesetting that was done in India.

God Jul has been the all-time "Christmas book" best-seller in Sweden, so I hope it will do well over here too. (I will personally dedicate a copy of it for you if you indicate this on your order).

The book came about by pure chance at a time when I was the art director of the Uppsala company Scandecor, that was the world's biggest purveyor of posters and photo walls as well as other graphic products. Scandecor also represented Hallmark Cards in the Nordic region. In its marketing for Hallmark products, Scandecor found that Swedes did not warm up to the American-style Christmas cards. I was asked to find Swedish motifs and by chance mentioned this at a dinner I was attending and instantly got two different tips of private collections of Christmas cards. Going through these collections, I was completely enamored by all the fantastic cards and decided to put the best ones in a book! It was gratifying to see that the thousands of Swedes who bought my book as well as the critics felt the same way.

Have a really nice October!

Anders