1947: when now begins

`Extraordinarily inventive and gripping, a uniquely personal account of a single, momentous year.'

`Asbrink's elegant prose (translated by Fiona Graham) offers a lyrical history of a year that seems both recent and ancient.'

`Elisabeth Asbrink's lucid and vivid narrative exposes the reader to the anxious dilemmas of refugees, the calculations of lawyers in tribunals, the ennui at cocktail parties, the cynical strategies in negotiating halls, the devastating impacts on people's lives, and reveals how our modern era was shaped ... An outstanding work, history as it should be told.'

`This is history as a series of eclectic snapshots of events and episodes and people, from the Nuremberg Trials to the partition of India, during a year in which the world tried to redefine its hopes and come to terms with its failures: and it makes for fascinating, disquieting, lively, and often surprising reading.'

`An intriguing account of a number of significant events which occurred in a year when the world was beginning to come to terms with the fallout from the Second World War ... Asbrink deftly brings together the tangle, the mess, the aspirations, and the disappointments which characterised the period and which for her resonate personally through her family history.'

`Like an image created from a thousand juxtaposed pixels, Asbrink builds a cumulative picture of 1947 ... Less a work of history, her book is more like an ingeniously constructed novel.'

`Gripping, overwhelming, and completed with such stylistic and factual consistency that you almost lose your breath. It does not happen often, but occasionally: good journalistic craftsmanship rises and becomes great literature.'

`Elisabeth Asbrink has written a book about history that distinguishes itself from many other history books by its poetic beauty...1947 is as much an adept history book as it is a beautiful and well-written piece of fiction. Read it!'

`If you don't get your hands on this book you will miss out not only on a historically meaningful year, but also on a strong reading experience.'

`You get a piece of a life in your hands. There is something here that you seldom find in young Swedish prose ... It is beautifully told. Dark, but beautiful.'

`A skillful and illuminating way of presenting, to wonderful effect, the cultural, political, and personal history of a year that changed the world.'

`Asbrink works with great subtlety, allowing us to make our own judgments and trace any parallels or echoes with the present. Fiona Graham deserves credit for her remarkable translation.'

'Utterly fascinating.'

`[A]n extraordinary achievement.'