Essays and Prose
"I seek out consolation as a hunter tracking prey."
—"Our Need for Condolation Is Insatiable"
"Creative imagination awakens early. As children we are all 'makers' /.../ I took to 'making things up' early. Reality—though it is far too grand a word—became warmer, more amusing, more fun to look at if one rearranged it a little."
—"A Child's Memoirs"
"… God enters Newton's house. /…/ It is now midnight and by the fireplace behind old Newton a red-coated valet is busy preparing the midnight tea /…/ At this moment, the valet drops the tray /…/ The tray should fall, but it doesn't. Instead it remains suspended in the mid-air darkness, glistening and terrible. Then slowly, it begins to rise upward to the ceiling."
—"God visits Newton, 1727"/"A Thousand Years with God", prose excerpt from an unfinished novel
Essays
"Our Need for Consolation Is Insatiable" / "Vårt behov av tröst är omättligt", 1952. Translation by Steven Hartman, 2009. Not yet published. Read more
"Our Need for Consolation". Adaptation by Lo Dagerman and Brian Levy based on translation by Steven Hartman, 2009.
Most well-known of Dagerman's essays is the haunting "Our Need for Consolation is Insatiable". It has been published as a separate pamphlet in Sweden, France, Italy and Greece. This essay still has to be published in English.
A second essay, "A Child's Memoirs", is published in the short story collection The Games of Night.
Prose
"A Thousand Years with God, God visits Newton, 1727" / "Tusen år hos gud" (published posthumously). Translation by Steven Hartman, 1998. Not yet published.
"God Pays a Visit To Newton, 1727". Translation by Ulla Nätterqvist-Sawa. Prism International, Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia, October 1986. 7-24.
"A Thousand Years With the Lord". Translation by Naomi Walford. Published in the short story collection The Games of Night, The Bodley Head, London; Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1959.
Dagerman started and abandoned many book projects during his years of writing block. Just before he died, he worked on a novel loosely based on the life of the legendary Swedish writer Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (1793-1866). Almqvist fled Sweden under a cloud of criminal accusations for an obscure and impoverished life the United States. Only the prologue and fragments of the novel about Almqvist exist. Since the prologue "Tusen år hos gud"/"A Thousand Years with God" was published it has received much interest, and has been translated into several languages.