Reviews

• “A novel to read in one sitting about the free love of Maria And Artur. /…/ Arnald maintains a successful balance between enticing facts and poetic truth while also testing the borders of fiction. /…/ Despite the fact that the splices show, essayistic lucidity, dreamy poetry, and analytical sharpness are forged into a beautiful whole. The result is a book that I read in one sitting.”

• “A gripping story of love: …not only is it learned, refined, and historical but also modern and actually moving. Just the warmth itself between them, which the skilful Arnald manages to bring to life, touches a modern pessimistic child marked by divorce to the marrow. The rest is just as good.”

• “It is as expected a highly fascinating read, not least through the passages where Arnald’s own imagination is given free reign. /…/ Arnald’s way of depicting Maria’s loneliness as a child is done in a model way: concretely and credibly. /…/ It is thus a very alert, versatile and unruly but still an exceptionally well-informed and penetrating biography that Jan Arnald has achieved. So sure, even a literary scholar can without being ashamed gain a large, captivated and grateful reading public.”

• “A solid text material is by no means enough for a book to be born. In addition, it takes a driving force, power of insight and a capacity to make the material into something personal. Arnald without a doubt possesses all of this. /…/ The result is a very delicate and loving portrayal of two people who chose to live their lives against all convention.”

• “Jan Arnald has a lovely emotional intensity in his writing that makes for reading at a stretch.”

• “In his new novel, Jan Arnald writes his way toward the heart, toward the trembling life nerve in the lives of Artur Lundkvist and Maria Wine. /…/ The interesting and truly impressive thing about the novel Maria And Artur is that Jan Arnald truly succeeds in portraying both Maria And Artur from the inside in a credible way. /…/ Jan Arnald has an extensive authorship to date. With Maria And Artur, it is as though all the pieces suddenly manage to fall into place. /…/ Maria And Artur is a solid and convincing novel, full of life and insight.”