Det finst mektige fiendar som vil drepe diktet. Som ordet "nysgjerrig" for eksempel. Som verbet "skape"; som uttrykket "skrivinga mi", som adjektiva "djup" og "overflatisk". Eg kler meg og sminkar meg for å uttrykke mitt indre er berre den banale inversjonen av: eg ber sanninga som ei maske.

Begrenset opplag på 200 eks.

Andrev Walden tilldelades Augustpriset 2023 för sin romandebut Jävla karlar men hans säregna språk är äldre än så. Som krönikör och essäist har han nominerats till Stora Journalistpriset för sin stilistik och sina oväntade perspektiv på det mänskliga tillståndet. Här samlar han sina bästa texter från Dagens Nyheter åren 2019-2023 i en volym som rymmer allt från den dova klangen av en tiokrona i dammsugaren till den förbjudna drömmen om att hitta ett lik. Och en ovanligt arg gubbe.

ANDREV WALDEN är journalist och illustratör, och arbetar idag som skribent på Dagens Nyheter och driver podden Helvetet med Parisa Amiri. 2018 släpptes hans bokdebut, krönikesamlingen Ditt lilla mörker i ljuset.

"Det är spänstigt och vitalt, och välskrivet, briljant helt enkelt." BTJ

Vad är det som händer nere vid vattnet? Emelie har flytt staden för skogen och ser plötsligt en grupp människor. Sju är de, alla med sin egen särskilda förmåga.

Någon var här först och är liksom grunden för allt. En annan är så handlingskraftig att hon suttit i fängelse för dråp. En tredje, nykomlingen, är bara så obegripligt vacker. Och så är det Sara, först och främst är det nog hon, alfahonan.

Stacken skildrar en grupp människor utanför samhället. Hur hamnade de där, som delar av en grupp där ingen måste klara allt och där alla bidrar med något? Måste man trivas med den roll man tilldelats av andra? Och vad händer när en främling en Utanförs! dyker upp och skakar om allt?

Annika Norlins första roman, efter hyllade debuten Jag ser allt du gör, är en magnetisk, rolig och djupt berörande berättelse om kärlek och den outgrundliga makt vi har över andra människor.

Sju galningar (1929) er hovudverket blant romanane til Roberto Arlt. Det er ei vill forteljing frå underverda i Buenos Aires, der pengeinnkrevjaren og oppfinnaren Erdosain manøvrerer blant små og store kjeltringar, horer og hallikar, skrønande gullgravarar, revolusjonære militære og mystiske drøymarar med stormannsgalne planar.

I samtida blei Arlt kritisert for den ureine stilen sin, men ettertida har sett på han som ein nyskapar. Arlt blanda ulike skrivemåtar og braut både konvensjonar og fornuftas reglar. Historia om den pengelense Erdosain er ein røvarroman med element av surrealisme og skiten realisme. Verket er drive av ein rasande desperasjon, eit agg mot samfunnet og ein hemningslaus fantasi som gjer romanen til ein nærast profetisk parabel over det urolege hundreåret som kom etter boka.

Med Demon Copperhead har Barbara Kingsolver skrevet en moderne klassiker. Romanen vant både den høythengende Pulitzer-prisen 2023 og Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023, og har ligget over 1 år på toppen av New York Times bestselgerliste.
I fjellene i det sørlige Appalachia vokser Demon Copperhead opp under svært trange kår. Han er født til verden av en enslig tenåringsmor i en enkel husvogn, uten andre fordeler i livet enn sin avdøde fars pene trekk og kobberrøde hår, besk humor og en ekstrem evne til å overleve. Demon er nådeløs når han forteller om fosterhjem, barnearbeid, forsømte skoler, sportslig suksess, rusavhengighet, katastrofal kjærlighet og knusende tap.
Demon Copperhead er en roman om kjærlighet og behovet for kjærlighet, om drømmer og sinne, hat og smerte. Fullstendig opprivende, men likevel oppløftende og fylt av håp.

Miguel og Nora, far og datter, lever i hver sine verdensdeler og forsøker begge å skape paradis på jord. En Edens hage. Miguel gjennom politisk krigføring. Eller revolusjon, om du vil. Datteren i et drivhus i botanisk hage. Nora har ikke sett eller hørt fra faren på flere tiår da familien ringer fra Mexico. Hun blir oppfordret til å komme tilbake. Faren kan trenge henne. Drar hun? Klart hun drar. Men drar hun bort fra, eller til noe? Edens hus er en roman om frø og patroner.

This is a book about the choices we make and the chain reaction that follows . . .

By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West’s affair, through 1930s nuclear physics, to Flanagan’s father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this daisy chain of events reaches fission when a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river, not knowing if he is to live or to die.

Flanagan has created a love song to his island home and his parents and the terrible past that delivered him to that place.

Through a hypnotic melding of dream, history, science, and memory, Question 7 shows how our lives so often arise out of the stories of others and the stories we invent about ourselves.

I seks tiår har Robert Wyatt vært en inspirator og kreativ kraft i de fruktbare grenseområdene mellom pop, rock, jazz og noe uklassifiserbart. Robert Wyatt er er helt unik. To sekunders sang eller tre sekunders famlende poesi fremført med en finger på et enkelt tangentinstrument er nok til å gjenkjenne stemmen og stemningene hans. Denne boka er om Robert Wyatts fineste plate, Rock Bottom.

A bright, obsessive compulsive boy is shipped off to a hothouse academic boarding school just before he reaches his thirteenth birthday; just as Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited starts to bite, and the Beatles’ Revolver explodes.
In January 1966, Robyn Hitchcock is still a boy pining for his green Dalek sponge and his family’s comforting au pair, Teresa. By December 1967, he’s mutated into a 6 ft 2-inch rabid Bob Dylan fan, whose two ambitions in life are to get really stoned and move to Nashville.

In between, as the hippie revolution blossoms in the world outside, Hitchcock adjusts to the hierarchical, homoerotic world of Winchester (think Gormenghast via Evelyn Waugh), threading a path through teachers with arrested development, some oafish peers and a sullen old maid – a very English freak show. On the way he befriends a cadre of bat-winged teenage prodigies and meets their local guru, the young Brian Eno. And his home life isn’t any more normal . . .

At the end of 1967, all the ingredients are in place that will make Robyn Hitchcock a songwriter for life. But then again, does 1967 ever really end?

In 1977, 17-year-old Steven Hamper was a stonemason in the dockyards of Chatham, Kent. His heart, however, beat in sync with the punk rock tremors of the era, seduced by its celebration of amateurism. So, in a gesture of revolutionary defiance, he took a 3lb club hammer and smashed his hand, vowing to never work again. In doing so, Steven Hamper metamorphosed into Billy Childish, a true renaissance man.

Childish has since remained steadfastly true to punk’s DIY cred, becoming one of the most recognisable and authentic voices in whichever artistic endeavour he undertakes. He has released over one hundred and fifty albums of raw rock and roll, punk, blues and folk, written many volumes of searing poetry as well as several autobiographical novels. But what he is perhaps best known for in recent years is his painting, for which he is now critically, commercially and internationally feted. He hasn’t changed course in any of his disciplines, though. The world just caught up with the sheer volume of his brutally honest work.

To Ease My Troubled Mind is a mosaic portrait collated over a year of interviews with Childish, as well as with close family, ex-girlfriends, bandmembers past and present, friends, foes, collaborators, even his therapist. It is an unflinching, yet frequently spiritual and funny portrait of an artist whose obstacle-strewn upbringing formed the backbone of his work: raised in a broken home and abused as a child, Childish was an undiagnosed dyslexic in remedial class at school who is nevertheless now Britain’s most prolific and uncompromising creative force.

1917. Virginia Woolf arrives at Asheham, on the Sussex Downs, immobilized by nervous exhaustion and creative block.

1930. Feeling jittery about her writing career, Sylvia Townsend Warner spots a modest workman’s cottage for sale on the Dorset coast.

1941. Rosamond Lehmann settles in a Berkshire village, seeking a lovers’ retreat, a refuge from war, and a means of becoming ‘a writer again’.

Rural Hours tells the story of three very different women, each of whom moved to the country and were forever changed by it.

In this bold new biography, Harriet Baker vividly recreates the ‘rural hours’ of the writers Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Rosamond Lehmann. We encounter them at quiet moments – pausing to look at an insect on the windowsill; jotting down a recipe; or digging for potatoes, dirt beneath their nails. Slowly, we start to see transformations unfold. Invigorated by new landscapes, and the daily trials and small pleasures of making homes, they emerge from long periods of creative uncertainty and private disappointment; they embark on new experiments in form, in feeling and in living. In the country, each woman finds her to convalescence and recovery; to sexual and political awakening; and, above all, to personal freedom and creative flourishing.

Graceful, fluid, and enriched by previously untouched archival material, Rural Hours is both a paean to the bravery and vision of three pioneering writers, and a passionate invitation to us to recognize the radical potential of domestic life and rural places, and find new enchantment in the routines and rituals of each day.

Boyfriends masquerade as straight bros to have fun on an early internet porn site. Sex on Viagra; sex on acid. A lesbian bar sells out, turning barflies into doms for hire. In Spain, an exchange student lets two young men flip a coin to see who will have her. A stranger on a train. A collegiate lesbian ‘it’ couple. A trans woman bashes back. Post-apocalyptic punk crushes. Slut eras. An American intellectual in Austria fucks and talks attachment styles with a Viennese queer. A jaded Black queen ponders race, apps and what the sex we have says about us. Taking us from the awkwardness of middle school to the transcendence of a sex club, SLUTS presents an inspiringly diverse collection of writing – fiction and non-fiction, pro and con, philosophical and compulsive – exploring the eternally controversial word. Whether an insult or badge of honor, an identity or a state of mind, SLUTS engages some of the hottest minds of the moment to riff on the subject, exploring the nature of desire and its cultural consequences, creating a collection bound to become a classic of sex writing. Featuring work by: DL Alvarez, Jeremy Atherton Lin, Vera Blossom, Chloe Caldwell, Cristy Road Carrera, Sam Cohen, Tom Cole, Lydia Conklin, jimmy cooper, Lyn Corelle, Jenny Fran Davis, Cyrus Dunham, Hedi El Kholti, Robert Gluck, Miguel Gutierrez, Gary Indiana, Taleen Kali, Cheryl Klein, Gabrielle Korn, Nate Lippens, Meredith Maran, Carta Monir, Amanda Montell, Carely Moore, Bradford Nordeen, Baruch Porras-Hernandez, Kamala Puligandla, Brontez Purnell, Liara Roux, Andrea Sands, Daviel Shy, Jen Silverman, Anna Joy Springer, Laurie Stone, McKenzie Wark & Zoe Whittal.

A groundbreaking survey of the language used around queerness in the Arab world, with contributions by leading Arab queer writers, thinkers and activists, The Queer Arab Glossary is a first-of-its-kind survey of the linguistic landscape surrounding queerness in the Arab world.

It brings together more than 300 words and terms used to refer to queer people across the spoken Arabic dialects, ranging from the humorous to the harrowing, serious to tongue-in-cheek, pejorative to endearing.

Featuring anecdotes and fascinating historical facts, the bilingual glossary paints a linguistic picture of how queer bodies are perceived within the Arab region.

It includes insightful essays by eight leading Arab queer artists, academics, activists and writers, which situate the glossary in a modern social and political context.

With beautiful, witty illustrations by Haitham Haddad, The Queer Arab Glossary is a powerful response to myths about queer people in the Arab world. It is proof that the LGBTQI+ Arab community is alive and thriving.

Like Love is a momentous, raucous collection of essays drawn from twenty years of Maggie Nelson’s brilliant work. These profiles, reviews, remembrances, tributes and critical essays, as well as several conversations with friends and idols, bring to life Nelson’s passion for dialogue and dissent. The range of subjects is wide – from Prince to Carolee Schneemann to Matthew Barney to Lhasa de Sela to Kara Walker – but certain themes recur: intergenerational exchange; love and friendship; feminist and queer issues, especially as they shift over time; subversion, transgression and perversity; the roles of the critic and language in relation to visual and performance arts; forces that feed or impede certain bodies and creators; and the fruits and follies of a life spent devoted to making.

Arranged chronologically, Like Love shows the writing, thinking, feeling, reading, looking and conversing that occupied Nelson while writing iconic books such as Bluets and The Argonauts. As such, it is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson’s own development and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists.

How risk, disasters and pollution were managed and made acceptable during the Industrial Revolution

Being environmentally conscious is not nearly as modern as we imagine. As a mode of thinking it goes back hundreds of years. Yet we typically imagine ourselves among the first to grasp the impact humanity has on the environment. Hence there is a fashion for green confessions and mea culpas.

But the notion of a contemporary ecological awakening leads to political impasse. It erases a long history of environmental destruction. Furthermore, by focusing on our present virtues, it overlooks the struggles from which our perspective arose.

In response, Happy Apocalypse plunges us into the heart of controversies that emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries around factories, machines, vaccines and railways. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz demonstrates how risk was conceived, managed, distributed and erased to facilitate industrialization. He explores how clinical expertise around 1800 allowed vaccination to be presented as completely benign, how the polluter-pays principle emerged in the nineteenth century to legitimize the chemical industry, how safety norms were invented to secure industrial capital and how criticisms and objections were silenced or overcome to establish technological modernity.

Societies of the past did not inadvertently alter their environments on a massive scale. Nor did they disregard the consequences of their decisions. They seriously considered them, sometimes with dread. The history recounted in this book is not one of a sudden awakening but a process of modernising environmental disinhibition.