Ulf Peter Hallberg Sweden

Swedish author, but has lived in Berlin since 1983. Hallberg's international breakthrough was the highly acclaimed essay-novel Flanörens blick (Norstedts 1996) (The Glance of the Flaneur), (Il sguardo dal flâneur) (Iperborea, Italy 2001). Hallberg has written for theatre and film, Benjamin's Shadow (1998) – about Walter Benjamin's exile in Paris in the 1930s – or Night at Social North (1999, Folkhemsnatten) – about the fate of the welfare state Sweden after the murder of Olof Palme. In 2005 Hallberg followed up with Grand Tour for which Hallberg was rewarded one of Sweden's most honourable prizes Samfundet De Nios Vinterpris. Hallberg's works are marked by humour and insight, with a foreign glance on things, whether it is his native homeland Sweden or the history of Europe.

In May 2006 The Stolen Football - Italian Stories was published both in Sweden and Italy. In September 2006 Hallberg's and Skjødt Jensen's film The Character are you Playing Tonight? (script-writer, director), starring the Bergman-actor Erland Josephson, was released in Sweden.

With Erland Josephson:
Livets mening och andra bekymmer
(The Meaning of Life and Other Worries) Atlantis AB, 2010

Mr. Josephson, a famous actor, has during a far too short life in film and theatre taken on countless roles. A fixed identity was never his thing. Locked in the Theatre Castle he tries together with his old friend, Mister Test, a worn out test person, to solve the question of the meaning of life. Countless worries get in the way. Outside humanity kicks up a racket. Mr. Josephson and Mister Test only aim for one thing: To quietly think through their lives. A novel of art from above, only for the mad.
Rights sold:
 Denmark: Batzer

Europeiskt skräp
Sexton sätt att minnas en pappa
(European Trash: Sixteen Ways to Remember a Father) Symposion, Sweden Fall 2009

Winner of the Gerard Bonnier Prize 2010, 10.000 Euro

The novel circles around the image of my father, the collector of objects, art and wisdom, who in his flat in Malmö, keeps all of what the others call "European Trash" (our culture) together. Sixteen stories to have him as a medium.

European Trash represents the fourth in a series of essay novels called Life Time. The earlier volumes are The Glance of the Flaneur (1993, 96), Grand Tour (2005), and Legends and Lies (2007).

Rights sold:
Serbia: Adresa
Italy: Iperborea
Lithuania: Apostrofa Publishers

Legender & lögnar
(Legends and Lies) Symposion, Sweden, 2007

Two tales: <em>Legender & lögnar and Italienska ögonblick collide in an entertaining and innovative novel, inspired by Italian neorealism and French nouvelle vague.