Gregorius

by Bengt Ohlsson

Translated from the Swedish by Silvester Mazzarella

In 1905 Hjalmar Soderberg published his diary novel, Doctor Glas, a literary tour de force which has remained one of the masterpieces of Swedish literature. It is a complicated love triangle, which culminates in the murder of Gregorius, an apparently repulsive and hypocritical priest, by Doctor Glas, hopelessly in love with Gregorius' young wife. It is the story of one man's decision to take another man's life, and a study of what is defensible in the interest of the common good. Bengt Ohlsson, one of Sweden's most successful young writers, has responded to Doctor Glas with Gregorius, which gives Gregorius himself a voice over the course of what could be his last and fateful summer. It is a compelling study of loneliness, longing and the nature of love; of the desires that bring people together and the fears that keep them apart.

(From Publisher).

Bengt Ohlsson was born in 1963, and since his critically acclaimed debut in 1984 he has risen steadily to become one of Sweden's most celebrated young novelists, recently winning the country's top literary award, the August Prize, for Gregorius. He lives in Stockholm.

This is an outstanding story about a human mind, from an important and really gifted storyteller, the novel is taking up a secondary character in Hjalmar Soderberg's "Doctor Glas"

In this rewrite of a Swedish Classic ( Doctor Glas by Hjlmar Soderberg) the perspective is shifted and the roles redefined. The former villain is not enlarged as a hero but brought to life as an ordinary man.