News
January 2012
Opening at the Gothenburg International Film Festival: Vårt behov av tröst/Our Need for Consolation, a short film based on Dagerman's essay Vårt behov av tröst är omättligt/Our Need for Consolation Is Insatiable published two years before his death. Stellan Skarsgård is the on-screen narrator in this film by Dan Levy Dagerman which combines dramatization and documentary imagery to give insight into Dagerman's fight for his life. Read more
November 2011
The following Dagerman poems in current Swedish music compositions: Birgitta Svit (Daniel Östersjö – acustic composition using piano, guitar, base, drums, song); 8 maj 1945 (Hans Nilsson – choir, symphony orchestra), Jorden (Pelle Olofsson – choral piece); Jorden (Anders Edenroth/The Real Group – a capella, piano) theme in forthcoming Swedish feature film.
September 2011
Finally! The first US edition of German Autumn - Dagerman's collection of articles from Germany immediately after the fall of the Third Reich. Foreword by Mark Kurlansky. "Unlike any other reporting at the time." More...
“Dagerman’s Star” at the Gothenburg Book Fair – The Swedish Dagerman Society gives a mini-seminar in words and music on the star theme in Dagerman's writing.
June 2011
The Dagerman Award 2011 goes to Judit Benedek and SOS Romer – a project about attitude change. It shines a light on the prejudice of people of Romer background through the medium of theater. The project is a collaboration between Teater Kolibri in Hungary and Teater De Vill in Sweden.
February 2011
UMP has scheduled the release of German Autumn for October 2011! Godine's Dagerman short story collection set for November 2011! There will be new introductions by prominent US authors to both volumes - more to follow.
December 2010
YES!!! The University of Minnesota Press has signalled interest in reprinting a number of Dagerman texts in the USA and Canada, starting with German Autumn followed by The Island of the Doomed and A Burnt Child in new translation.
Stig Dagerman's poem Julbudskap/Christmas Message has been put to music by Urban Forsgren and Bengt Söderhäll. It's available on a CD in both Swedish and English. Listen.
November 2010
Siri Hustvedt joined a group of highly esteemed Swedish writers - Kerstin Ekman, P.O. Enquist, Lotta Lotass and Agneta Pleijel - for discussion of Dagerman's writing in Stockholm on November 7. Actors Jonas Bergström, Anita Björk, Elin Klinga and Hannes Meidal read excerpts from A Burnt Child, The Island of the Doomed, The Snake and Thousand Years with God. See clip.
Afterwards, in a conversation with Dagerman's daughter Lo, Hustvedt said that she would like to see all of Dagerman's writing readily available in quality English translations.
September 2010
Release of brand new Swedish editions of Ormen (The Snake) and De dömdas ö (The Island of the Doomed) by Norstedt's Publishing. New introductions written by authors Siri Hustvedt and J.M.G. LeClezio respectively!
More Dagerman research: Rikard Apelgren, A Dream in the House of Law: The Moment, Man and the Transcendent. Studies in the Writings of Stig Dagerman's. Stockholm University 2010. The focus of the dissertation is on religious themes underlying Dagerman's description of the human condition.
August 2010
Norstedt's contract with Boston-based David Godine Publishing finalized for the publication of two new Dagerman volumes in English within Godine's Verba Mundi series. The first will be a short story collection, and the latter, finally, an English translation of the novel Bröllopsbesvär (Wedding Worries).
June 2010
Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård reads excerpts from Our Need for Consolation on camera for a short film in development by Lo Dagerman and Dan Levy Dagerman.
Paris-based L'Harmattan publishes researcher Karin Dahl's dissertation on how Stig Dagerman's work has been received in France and Italy: La réception de l'œvre de Stig Dagerman en France - la consécration d'un écrivain étranger.
May 2010
The Urugayan writer Eduardo Galeano is awarded the 2010 Stig Dagerman Prize because his writing is steadfast in its support for all those who are marginalized and condemned.
Deutscher Herbst '46 (German Autumn '46) - The film by Michael Gaumnitz now on Youtube in four parts (link to 1/4).
April 2010
Release of brand new Swedish editions of Tysk höst (German Autumn) and Bränt barn (A Burnt Child) by Norstedt's Publishing. New introductions written by authors Elfriede Jelinek and P.O. Enquist respectively!
Top Ten Cultural News as reported by Swedish Television (SVT): "Stig Dagerman - A new spring for one of greatest figures in Swedish literature. Norstedts' new Dagerman releases kick off with two opposite poles of Dagerman's short but intense writing career: the journalistic German Autumn and the novel A Burnt Child. Less than two years separates them, still here Dagerman first surpasses all Swedish journalism that went before and maybe after, only to shortly thereafter in a few weeks write one of the most powerful books in Swedish prose about love and betrayal." Read in Swedish.
March 2010
"Another Dagerman" - article in Svenska Dagbladet (Stockholm daily) on the continued interest in Dagerman's writing in Sweden and abroad. New Swedish editions of German Autumn and A Burnt Child just released!
Finally: American interest in translating and staging a Dagerman's play: Streber (Company Man). One rationale: "With the culture of corporate and personal greed on full display in the US ... , Streber strikes a chord with similar themes and behavior".
Moment Theater in Stockholm creatively stages their adaptation of The Island of the Doomed based on Dagerman's intense novel. "There is no text like it in Swedish literature" says Director Pontus Stenshall. Read review: "To Dialogue with Dagerman".
February 2010
A small exclusive American publisher is interested in publishing Dagerman in the USA.The proposal will include a short story collection, with new translations by Steven Hartman, and one novel . It will most likely be Wedding Worries - for the first time in English! More to follow...
A short film screenplay: Our Need for Consolation, based on Stig's essay, has been submitted for funding in Sweden and the US. The film will be shot in Strockholm and New York by Dan Levy Dagerman, possibly as early as April/May 2010.
www.dagerman.us gets inquiries from different parts of the world: "Where can I find Dagerman translations in Spanish?" (Argentina); "I would like the rights to translate Stig Dagerman poems to Bengali." (Bangla Desh/Sweden); "Where do we get the rights to stage a play based on a Dagerman text?" (Portugal).
January 2010
German Autumn '46 by Michael Gaumnitz is now available on DVD with English narration. The film is an incredible document of the German state of mind that cold and rainy fall. It is also available in French, German and Swedish. Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for info.
Dagerman's novel De dömdas ö (The Island of the Doomed) is available for free at Litteraturbanken in Swedish only.
The Swedish theater group Moment will have a world premiere of The Island of the Doomed based on the novel on March 11 in Stockholm.
December 2009
The Dagerman Society in Sweden has had a very busy fall, particularly at the Book Fair in Gothenburg. Their work includes readings, music performances, interviews with this year's Dagerman Award Winner, Birgitta Walllin, and a talk titled Le Clezio in Dagerman's Forest alluding to JMG Le Clezio's Nobel lecture 2008. The Society is also active in renewed publication of Dagerman in Sweden.
Swedish paper Aftonbladet give rave reviews of the newly released CD Regn by Bengt Söderhäll and Urban Forsgren under the headline Dagerman surprises as humorist! (Mikael Strömberg, Aftonbladet Kultur, 12-16-09).
Film requests: From French choreographer who wants to use an excerpt from Our Need for Consolation in short dance film. From Swedish filmmaker to make a film based on short story The Man Who Could Not Cry.
November 2009
Special editions of German Autumn and A Burnt Child in Swedish to be released by Norstedts in the spring of 2010. German Autumn features an introduction by Austrian writer and Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek - who was also the recipient of the Stig Dagerman Award in 2004. The internationally acclaimed Swedish writer and playwright P.O. Enquist, whose recent biography A Different Life is translated into many languages including English, has written the introduction to A Burnt Child.
To Kill A Child is compulsory reading in Swedish drivers' education! STR - Sveriges Trafikskolors Riksförbund - has included the short story in its risk assessment training handbook that is used nationwide. Stig would be happy: he initially wrote the story to promote traffic safety in 1952!
The Swedish Academy awards a grant to help fund www.dagerman.us!!! Thank you!
October 2009
Film Automne Allemand '46 (80 min), based on German Autumn, by French documentary filmmaker Michaël Gaumnitz. Shown on French, German and Swedish TV. Read more...
Eichborn Verlag in Germany will publish a new German edition of Wedding Worries in their series of classic literature started by Hans Magnus Enzenberger.
Spanish publisher (we'll let you know who later) acquires rights to publish and market Dagerman in Spanish and Portuguese.
Norstedts Agency, that holds the rights to Dagerman, at the giant Book Fair in Frankfurt talking to publishers from the US, UK, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Latin America.
Swedish public radio highlights new CD Regn with music to poems by Dagerman. Listen on SR or on MySpace.
September 2009
Our Need for Consolation in French will be performed by Compagnie Coups d'Foudre early in 2010 in the former swimming-hall Monitor in Paris. It promises to be a particularly spectacular and thought-provoking performance. Our Need for Consolation is also going to be staged in Fribourg, Switzerland.
Têtes Raides' reggae version of Notre besoin de consolation est impossible à rassassier now have had over 38,000 viewers on Youtube. See the live performance.
Now on Vimeo: The Games of Night, based on Dagerman's short story, set in New York.
New French editions of L'Ile de condamnés (The Island of the Doomed) and selected essays/La dictature du chagrin from Agone!
Swedish artist Patrik Qvist exhibits oil paintings based on A Thousand years with God in Stockholm. www.niklasbelenius.com.
August 2009
Website in English www.Dagerman.us up and running!
June 2009
New Norwegian translation of German Autumn gets great reviews: "Dagerman's writing provides current insight, the reader is asked to stretch his/her thinking, to understand the world from another point of view..." (Bergens Tidende 6/15/09) "Dagerman's Tysk Høst shows that also journalism tied to a specific time can have the qualities of a classic." (Dagsavisen 6/16/09).
April 2009
Melanie Deattre-Vogt's beautiful illustrations to Dieu rend visite à Newton (1727) (A Thousand Years with God) released in France by Les Edition de Chemin fer.
December 2008
J.M.G. Le Clézio, Nobel prize Laureate 2008, delivers his Nobel lecture titled In the Forest of Paradoxes based on a quote by Stig Dagerman from the essay The Writer and His Conscience. Le Clézio mentions Dagerman influence in a New York Times article.
June 2008
French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio receives the Annual Stig Dagerman Award! Motivation: "JMG Le Clezio fills the white paper of his books with the most beautiful combination of words, created from an awareness of the unfair and unnecessary living circumstances of those who are weak and excluded. We all can see ourselves, our time and place, our freedom and vulnerabilities in his literary testimony."
February 2008
The French group Têtes Raides has much success with their interpretation of Notre besoin de consolation est impossible à rassassier (Our Need for Consolation is Insatiable) set to reggae.