Andrev Walden is awarded the most prestigious prize for Swedish fiction

The recipients of the three August Prizes have been announced in Stockholm.

This evening in Stockholm, author Andrev Walden was awarded the August Prize for fiction.

He receives the prize for his novel Jävla karla about a young boy navigating life with constantly changing father figures.

Jävla karla is Andrev Walden’s second book. His first book, Ditt lilla mörker i ljuset, came out in 2018. Both are published by Bokförlaget Polaris in Sweden.

The August Prize is the most prestigious national literary prize in Sweden, established in 1989 by the Swedish Publishers’ Association, and named after the writer August Strindberg.

The main prize is divided into three categories – the fiction prize, the non-fiction prize, and the children and young adult prize – and each recipient is awarded a bronze statuette and 100,000 Swedish krona.

This year’s non-fiction prize went to Per Svensson for Zorn – ett liv, en tid, published by Albert Bonniers Förlag. Oskar Kroon and Hanna Klinthage were awarded the children’s and young adult prize for Vitsippor och pissråttor, published by Rabén & Sjögren.

The significance of the August Prize is not lost on publishers outside of Sweden.

Last year, Ia Genberg received the fiction prize for her novel Detaljerna (The Details), originally published by Weyler Förlag in Sweden. This summer, the book was published in the UK by Headline and in the US by HarperVia, in an English translation by Kira Josefsson.

The 2021 recipient Elin Cullhed’s novel Eufori, en roman om Sylvia Plath (Euphoria, a novel about Sylvia Plath), originally published in Sweden by Wahlström & Widstrand, was recently published in an English translation by Canongate Books. Elin Cullhed’s novel is translated from the original Swedish by Jennifer Hayashida.

Previous recipients of the August Prize for fiction:

• 2022: Detaljerna, Ia Genberg (Weyler Förlag)

• 2021: Eufori, Elin Cullhed (Wahlström & Widstrand)

• 2020: Samlade verk, Lydia Sandgren (Albert Bonniers Förlag)

• 2019: Osebol, Marit Kapla (Teg Publishing)

• 2018: Ædnan, Linnea Axelsson, (Albert Bonniers Förlag)

• 2017: De kommer att drunkna i sina mödrars tårar, Johannes Anyuru (Norstedts)

• 2016: De polyglotta älskarna, Lina Wolff (Albert Bonniers Förlag)

• 2015: Allt jag inte minns, Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Albert Bonniers Förlag)

• 2014: Liv till varje pris, Kristina Sandberg (Norstedts)