Sweden's most celebrated and enduring love story.

Set at the turn of the previous century, THE SERIOUS GAME tells how Arvid, an ambitious and educated young man, meets Lydia, the daughter of a landscape painter, one summer and falls in love. Lydia, however, has other suitors, and Arvid is frightened of being tied by his emotions. Years later, now trapped inside loveless marriages of convenience, the two struggle to rekindle the promise of their romance with bitter and tragic results. A work of tremendous insight, tenderness and gentle irony, THE SERIOUS GAME tells a compelling story of bright young bohemians in love and struggling to free themselves from the snares of liberal society.

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1869, Hjalmar Söderberg became a literary sensation at the age of 28 when his first novel was accused of being pornographic. A rough contemporary of August Strindberg, he was one of Scandinavia's most prominent modernist authors.

Price: £8.99
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0-7145-3061-1
Fiction
Publication: reprinted August 2003