I had suddenly been given a concrete, genuine foundation for both my hatred and my self-esteem. Grandfather’s astonishing revelation gave me a new perspective on my life. The extract printed below is accompanied with a personal appreciation of the novel by its English translator, Joan Tate As Ingmar Svedberg remarked in an extensive appreciation of Kihlman’s work that appeared in Books from Finland 1-2/1976, ‘In his perceptive moral analyses, his exploration of the depths of human destructiveness and degradation, Kihlman is sometimes reminiscent of Faulkner.’ Since 1970, Kihlman has published three revealing autobiographical works, two of them dealing with his encounter with South America Dyre prins, first published in 1975, represents a brief interlude of fiction. His books are about crises – the conflict between the generations, between the individual and society, between opposing political ideologies, between homosexual and heterosexual love. Equally important in his writing, however, are his masterly psychological analyses, his examination of the myriad aspects of the human personality, his sovereign disregard for taboos and his unflagging search for the truth. He has been branded a merciless scourge of the bourgeoisie. Christer Kihlman (born 1930) first became known as a poet but, after publishing two collections of poetry, he turned to novels. Books from Finland presents here an extract from Dyre prins, a novel by the Finland-Swedish writer Christer Kihlman that is to be published in 1983 by Peter Owen of London under the title Sweet Prince, in a translation by Joan Tate.

All My Sons by Christer Kihlman