[ad_1]
One of the most important books of the fall has been written by Patrik Lundberg. “Fjärilsvägen” is about his mother Birgitta, the life she passed, the struggle and the sad ending.
This is a personally written text on Smålandsposten. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Birgitta Lundberg was born in 1950 and grew up in Sibbhult with 800 residents, a few miles from where I grew up, but just across the county line. But when I was born, Birgitta was already married to Nils-Gunnar and had moved into an apartment in Kristianstad. So they decided to build a house in Sölvesborg.
In Fjärilsvägen. Patrik Lundberg grew up there in the 80s and 90s.
When Birgitta was born a few years after the end of the war, there was hope for her life too. The record year was ahead of her. At folkhememmets Sverige, a working-class girl from the countryside could go to school for eight years, a year at a housewife’s school, and get an office job on the Monday after graduation. You could save for a driver’s license and a car, go dancing, and find love.
This is how Birgitta lived the Swedish dream with her husband, two adopted children, a Volvo and a villa. With a well-being that was there when I needed it. Birgitta did everything possible for her children. When Nils-Gunnar’s work took up most of the time, Birgitta had to take care of most of the home, garden, and children. Birgitta went part time. Have more time at home.
Then came the 1990s. The financial crisis and divorce. Stress. Poverty. Children’s lives at all costs. How would Birgitta do?
I will not reveal too much here. But it is a sad reading. Patrik Lundberg writes carefully and honestly about Birgitta’s struggle to maintain a reasonably dignified life. On the Swedish class society.
With love write. “Fjärilsvägen” is a tribute to mother Birgitta, who is no longer alive. She was only 68 years old. How it happened?
On the cover, Patrik Lundberg writes:
“The women’s movement of your generation meant that the personal was political, but for you there was another dimension: everything that affected women with a low educational level affected you, the political was personal for you.”
Another talented writer who has written about his mother’s life in book form is Alex Schulman. “Forget me” came in 2017, which became Book of the Year that year.
He is now up to date with a new novel that I long to put my teeth into: “The Survivors.”
Schulman writes about reliving his childhood as an adult.
“The Survivors” is about three brothers who travel across the country to scatter their mother’s ashes in the cabin that none of them have visited in twenty years.
I’m also looking forward to reading Ninni Schulman’s new book, which is not a little detective story based on Värmland, but an autobiographical novel. (See here.)
After a heartbreaking divorce, Ninni Schulman realizes that she has to deal with the childhood experiences that shaped her. She asks for hospital records that she has never read and the memories of childhood and adolescence hit her with full force. Born with a life-threatening spinal cord injury, Ninni’s upbringing was filled with hospitalizations, loneliness and exclusion. It is about the importance of reconciling with yourself and the past.
