Today the Swedish Oscar Committee presented the shortlist for Sweden’s submission to the Academy Award for ‘Best International Feature Film.’ The Emigrants, screenwriters Siv Rajendram Eliassen and Anna Bache-Wiig’s adaptation of Vilhelm Moberg’s immortal classic, is one of three titles in the running.

The Emigrants is the story of Kristina Nilsson, a mother who leaves a poverty-stricken Sweden with her family in the 1850s and sets out on a long, dangerous journey, hoping to find a better life for herself and her children in America. Starring Lisa Carlehed and Gustaf Skarsgård, the story is now being told from Kristina’s perspective for the first time ever.

Acclaimed Norwegian filmmaker Erik Poppe is the director of the film, which is produced by Fredrik Wikström Nicastro, SF Studios, with support from the Swedish Film Institute.

The Petrona Award’s jury has just presented its shortlist for the 2021 Petrona Award for ‘Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year.’ The list of six nominees include Anne Holt with A Necessary Death, Jørn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger with Death Deserved, and Yrsa Sigurdardóttir with Gallows Rock.

The Judges have the following to say about each title:

“A pacy, absorbing thriller with a gutsy, complex main character.” – on Anne Holt’s A Necessary Death.

“The novel expertly fuses the writers’ individual styles, while showcasing their joint talent for writing credible and engaging characters, and creating a fast-paced, exciting plot.” – on Jørn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger’s Death Deserved.

“[The protagonists’] relationship provides readers with some lighter moments and occasional black humour, along with a frisson of mutual attraction. The novel’s intricate plot focuses on skewed morals and revenge.” – on Yrsa Sigurdardóttir’s Gallows Rock.

The winning title will be announced on Thursday 4 November, 2021.

A pandemic has swept the world. Hanne Wilhelmsen, long since retired from the police force, has already lived in self-imposed exile in her apartment for years. As Norway is shut down, she finally has the chance to reclaim her empty city.

At the same time, police officer Henrik Holme is struggling with a murder case that no one seems to care too much about. A woman has been found naked in the trunk of a car. The body is intact, apart from the face which has been beaten beyond recognition. No one has reported her missing. No one knows who she is. Holme must turn to his old mentor Hanne Wilhelmsen for help.

At the biggest publishing house in Norway, the young editor Ebba Braut is only four days into her new job when the pandemic hits with full force. From her cramped home office, she is assigned the task to hunt down a very valuable lost manuscript by one of the publisher’s best-selling authors. She too is forced to call on Hanne Wilhelmsen, who recently submitted her first crime novel without being especially interested in being edited.

The Eleventh Manuscript is a story about family secrets and deceit, about identity theft and fraud, about authors and the publishing industry, and about how “realistic fiction” can be life-threatening. Literally.

Lars Kepler is the winner of the 2021 Crime Author of the Year award, bestowed by BookBeat and the Crimetime Festival. The award is based on statistics from the three latest audiobooks by Swedish crime authors during the last 12 months and the winner was announced this weekend during an award ceremony at the Gothenburg Book Fair.

“The authorship Lars Kepler is a phenomenon in itself and is one of Sweden’s most popular through time, and data from hundreds of thousands of listeners gives us the answers as to why. Not only is their latest novel, The Mirror Man, the most listened to book of 2020 on BookBeat, our overall data shows us that users love and cannot stop listening to any of their three latest novels. Thus they are, amongst incredibly strong competition, worthy winners of the ‘Crime Author of the Year,’” says Anna Riklund, Head of Content at BookBeat.

Alexandra and Alexander Ahndoril say:
“We love that storytelling has returned to our country through audio books. We feel that our narrators Gunilla Leining and Jonas Malmsjö have a magical ability to highlight the dark and suggestive in our books. We are very happy and proud of this award, and deeply grateful that we have such fantastic listeners.”

Peter Birro (b. 1966) is one of Scandinavia’s most admired and prolific screenwriters. The three-time Prix Italia-winner’s groundbreaking TV-series Hammarkullen, Det nya landet, and How Soon Is Now?! are sweeping visions of Swedish society, marginalized people, political dramas and deeply human, emotional stories.

For cinema Birro has written the hugely successful biopic Monica Z about the internationally acclaimed jazz singer Monica Zetterlund, one of Sweden’s most talented and tragic artists. Monica Z became the biggest commercial success of 2013 in Swedish theaters and went on to be nominated for several awards, including a ‘Grand Prix des Amériques’ at the Montréal World Film Festival and no less than 11 Guldbagge Awards, of which it won four.

Birro’s most recent feature title is an adaptation of the nonfiction title 438 Days. The dramatic story of the kidnapping of two Swedish journalists in 2011 in Ethiopia premiered in 2019 and was promptly nominated for six Guldbagge Awards.