Breaking up with a genius

Elisabeth Åsbrink is one of our most versatile authors, moving effortlessly between reportage, columns, non-fiction, and fiction. Regardless of genre, familiar threads interlace her work – questions about memory and forgetfulness, about being a woman and being a man, about the freedom and responsibility of art, and about the passage of time.

Breaking up with a genius is a collection of shorter texts that have been published in various contexts: as prefaces to books, opinion pieces, and columns in newspapers and magazines. Among much else, they tackle being friends with a genius (iconic playwright Lars Norén), an embroidery covered in swastikas, and the idea that Swedes are ’peace-damaged’. The topics both invite interpretation and offer resistance, in a style that is both amused and fierce. This is Elisabeth Åsbrink in brief. Yet as usual, her reach is expansive.