Per Olov Enquist and Germany

Novelist, playwright, columnist, and short story author Per Olov Enquist, one of the major and most important living Swedish authors, has written about or used German sources since his earliest work. He refers to this in his recent autobiographical work, Per Olov Enquist: Ett annat liv (2008; Per Olov Enquist: Another Life),¹ when he discusses his first trip to Greifswald in 1957 (Enquist 2008, 146). In point of fact, one of the most prominent of Enquist's major themes, namely, a search for personal as well as political truth, is often tied to Germany. The complexity of that search for truth is rooted in part in a deeply Christian upbringing juxtaposed against his constant questioning of history and an effort to dig deeper into the historical narrative. Enquist develops and explores this tension within numerous historical German contexts, ranging from eighteenth-century mesmerism, to the Nazi regime, to the student movements of the 1960s, and to his own experiences as a student and journalist in postwar Germany. He uses the childhood conflict between his mother's Christian faith and his own search for rational explanations as a kind of lever to open the door into the minds of his characters throughout his writing.

Enquist's first important novel, Magnetisörens femte vinter (1964; The Magnetist's Fifth Winter [1989]), takes place in eighteenth-century Germany and uses the German physician Mesmer as a parallel figure to the novel's protagonist. His next novel is Hess (1966), a dense and difficult novel written under the influence of the French nouveau roman. It focuses on Rudolf Hess, a leading Nazi and Hitler's deputy who flew to Scotland early in the Second World War, supposedly to negotiate peace with Great Britain. Germany plays a more complicated role in Legionärerna (1968; The Legionnaires [1973]), a documentary novel based on the imprisonment of Baltic soldiers who had served in the German Army in Sweden. In 1969, Enquist received Scandinavia's most prestigious literary award, the Nordic Prize, for this novel. Almost surprisingly, given his world travels, Enquist's next two books either take place in Germany or use his German observations as a source. The novel Sekonden (1971; The Second) uses Enquist's experiences of living in East and West Germany for several months in 1970 when he was doing research for articles on sports. The novel, based on the story of a son who wants to find out why his father cheated in his hammer throwing events, jumps back and forth between Sweden in the 1940s and Germany in 1970. It involves a complex discussion of Communist-dominated East Germany. Enquist's next book, a series of short stories titled Katedralen i München (1972; The Cathedral in Munich) also comes out of his work as a reporter and columnist. He was covering the Olympics in Munich when eleven Israeli athletes were taken hostage by terrorists and finally killed.

Germany becomes less central after this book, though his next volume, Berättelser från de inställda upprorens tid (1974; Stories from the Age of Canceled Revolutions), is also a collection of stories based on his work as a columnist—this time, one who goes to California for 6 months. But the first and longest story in the collection takes place in, and is based on current events in, West Berlin. Finally, though I will not discuss it in this paper, Enquist's novel, Livläkarens besök (1999; The Royal Physician's Visit [2001]) won Sweden's most important literary award, the August Prize, as well as France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger for 2000, and England's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. As all these awards suggest, this novel confirmed Enquist as one of Europe's pre-eminent writers. The novel's protagonist, Johann Friedrich Struensee, is a German doctor from Altona, and the story takes place in Denmark in the 1760s. The doctor brings with him to the Danish Royal Court ideas from the European Enlightenment, and he almost brings about a revolution in Denmark.

It is the notion of ideas coming from Europe, and...