Established by Swedish magazine QX in 1999, the QX Awards are an annual event celebrating and awarding LGBT achievements. Jonas Gardell is the proud winner of the 2024 Novel of the Year award, which he receives for his latest title, Sissy.

July 29, 1971: Club Etoile opens its doors to what will be known as “Sweden’s biggest sissy-fest ever.” Taxi after taxi rolls by, dropping them off one by one: Kajsa, Betty, Rosa, Nana, Jeanette, Frances and the others – the ones derided even by other gays. For one night only, they own the world.

At the same time, across town in one of Stockholm’s sleepy suburbs, a little boy gets out of bed and looks through the window, towards the city. It’s as if he can hear the laughter. As if the city’s calling him.

Sissy is a bitchy, painful, funny, dark, and filmic tale about coming of age and of fems – then as now, among the most vulnerable of us all.

The nominees for 2022’s Adlibris Awards have been announced. Adlibris is the leading book retailer in the Nordics and the Adlibris Award was founded in 2019 to celebrate the site’s greatest titles. The 10 nominated titles in the 9 respective categories have been selected by a jury of Adlibris employees from all works published in 2022.

Ia Genberg’s The Details is shortlisted in the ’Fiction’ category.

Amongst the nominated titles in the ‘Crime Fiction’ category are Lars Kepler’s The Spider, Anders de la Motte & Måns Nilsson’s Death Goes Antiquing and Liza Marklund’s The Mire.

In the ‘Childrens’ category – Jonas Gardell’s The Story of the Little Sparrow is shortlisted for ‘Children’s 0-6’ and Martin Widmark’s The Masquerade Mystery is nominated for ‘Children’s 6-12’. Anders Hansen’s Brain Blues for Teens is nominated for the ‘Young Adult’ category.

The winners will be announced on January 25, 2023.

Jonas Gardell’s The Story of the Little Sparrow features at No. 1 and Martin Widmark’s The Great Summer Holiday Book comes in at No. 3 on the official list for children’s fiction in Sweden.

Anja Gatu’s The Cat Who Came In From The Cold features at No. 1 on the official list for children’s fiction in Sweden, followed by Jonas Gardell’s The Story of the Little Sparrow  which comes in at No. 2.

The nominees for the Swedish 2021 Storytel Awards have been announced. The Storytel Awards have been bestowed since 2007 in Sweden to highlight the best audio books of the year. The awards are granted within six categories: Suspense, Fiction, Non-fiction, Feelgood, YA, and Children’s books.

Among the nominees for suspense are Kristina Ohlsson’s Icebreaker, Hjorth & Rosenfeldt’s As You Sow, Jens Lapidus’ The No-Go Zone, Anders de la Motte & Måns Nilsson’s A House to Die For, Liza Marklund’s The Polar Circle, and Anders Roslund’s Trust Me.

The nominees within the fiction category includes Fredrik Backman’s The Winners and Jonas Gardell’s A Happier Year, and Simona Ahrnstedt’s The Queen of the Night is featured on the Feelgood list.

Meanwhile, Anders Hansen’s Brain Blues and Måns Mosesson’s Tim – The Official Biography of Avicii features on the Non-fiction list, and David Sundin’s audiobook The Audiobook That Did Not Want To End – Part 2, from the same universe as The Book That Did Not Want To Be Read, is in the running for the Children’s books’ award.

Readers will be able to vote for their favorite works until February 9, after which a jury will pick a winner among the three candidates with the most votes in each category.

To cast your vote, click “Read more” below.

The nominees for 2021’s Adlibris Awards have been announced. Adlibris is the leading book retailer in the Nordics and the Adlibris Award was founded in 2019 to celebrate the site’s greatest titles. The 10 nominated titles in the 9 respective categories have been selected by a jury of Adlibris employees from all works published in 2021.

Fredrik Backman’s The Winners and Jonas Gardell’s A Happier Year are shortlisted in the ’Fiction’ category.

Amongst the nominated titles in the ‘Crime Fiction’ category are Niklas Natt och Dag’s 1795 and Liza Marklund’s The Polar Circle.

Måns Mosesson’s just published Tim – The official Biography of Avicii is nominated in the Non-fiction category.

Two titles by David Sundin are nominated in the ‘Childrens’ category – The Book That Really Did Not Want To Be Read is shortlisted for ‘Children’s 0-6’ while his upcoming Trollformler och besvärjelser is nominated for ‘Children’s 6-12’.

Fans have until December 8 to cast their votes in each respective category. The winners will be announced on January 25, 2022.

Click the “Read more” button below to cast your vote.

Photo credits: Kiefer Lee; Annika Marklund; Stellan Herner; Linnéa Jonasson Bernholm; Stefan Tell; Thron Ullberg

Jonas Gardell has been bestowed with Växjö Municipality’s Literature Prize in Pär Lagerkvist’s Memory 2021. The award was established in 2011 with the purpose of highlighting outstanding authorships in the spirit of Pär Lagerkvist and is handed out biannually. Gardell is praised with the following motivation: ”An authorship that with its strong anchoring in contemporary structures and historical roots alike, actualizes eternal fundamental moral issues and provides a voice to the vulnerable and those repeatedly rendered invisible.”

The award ceremony will take place on November 4th at the Växjö City Library.

Liza Marklund and Jo Nesbø divide the weekly lists’ No. 1 placements between them, with Marklund’s The Polar Circle coming in at No. 1 in audio and e-book and No. 2 in hardcover. Nesbø’s The Kingdom is No. 1 spot on the paperback list.

New on the lists are Jonas Gardell and Arne  Dahl, whose latest titles both debut in the hardcover category this week. Gardell’s A Happier Year does so at No. 4, and Dahl’s Meltdown at No. 5.

In 1879, renowned philosopher Pontus Wikner pens the text he will call “Psychological Self-Confessions.” The manuscript is locked in a tin box and sent to Uppsala’s University Library, where it will, per Wikner’s instructions, be left unopened for a minimum of fifty years. The unassuming box’s contents are so controversial and scandalous that rumors of it alone cause a panic among Wikner’s circle of friends, who try to prevent it from ever being opened. Yet Wikner’s wish is to one day have the manuscript published. In a future where everything has changed. In a happier year.

In 1970, almost a hundred years after Pontus Wikner’s melancholy confessions, a group of youths in Örebro form the Gay Power Club. The eccentric Ronny walks the town’s streets in full drag under the midday sun. The lovers Vanja and Kerstin create national headlines as “the girls who want to get married.” And together they perform Sweden’s first ever march for the freedom of homosexuals.

A Happier Year is Jonas Gardell’s gripping story of students Pontus and Herman and their impossible love story of the late 19th century. It is the fantastical tale of a few brave young people from a small-town in the middle of Sweden during the second half of the 20th century, youths who’ve decided that they too have a right to be happy. It’s a dizzying novel of love in a time when love had no language, and the true story of how the fight for freedom began.

Jonas Gardell’s Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves tells the heart-wrenching story of the lovers Benjamin and Rasmus and their group of friends in Stockholm, focusing on the early and mid-80s when the AIDS crisis became fact. The trilogy, a romantic fiction in three parts (1: Love, 2: Disease, 3: Death), chronicles the gay movement in Sweden and the world, holding up a furious mirror to the times lest we forget those who went before us, and the battles they fought for freedom, love, and the right to live.

Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves: 1. Love

When Rasmus steps off the train in Stockholm in September 1982, he’s leaving stuffy little Koppom behind for good. Young and beautiful, he throws himself into the welcoming arms of the LGBTQ community.

Benjamin is a Jehova’s Witness, knocking on doors to spread God’s word. Nothing can shake his faith. Until the day he rings the doorbell of Paul, the kindest, funniest and bitchiest gay God ever made.

Then on Christmas Eve, as snow covers the city’s rooftops, Rasmus and Benjamin meet. Things are never the same again.

This is a true story: It happened here, in this city, on these streets, among these people. In a city where people continued to live their lives as if nothing had changed, young men began to sicken, to fade, and to die.

Stina Jackson and Jonas Gardell have both been shortlisted for Bonnier’s Book Clubs’ Book of the Year Award. Jackson for her internationally bestselling debut The Silver Road, and Gardell for his In Memory of an Unconditional Love, the most sold literary novel in Sweden last year.

Bonnier’s Book Clubs is the home of five Swedish book clubs, among them the biggest one in Sweden. The winning book and author will be announced during the Gothenburg Book Fair. To see the list of the nominees and vote for your favorite, click “Read more” below.