An underemployed chef is pulled into the escalating violence of his neighbour's makeshift porn channel. An elderly piano student is forced to flee her home village when word gets out that she's fucked her thirty-something teacher. A hose pumping cava through the maquette of a giant penis becomes a murder weapon in the hands of a disaffected housewife.
In this collection from the winner of Sweden's August Prize, Lina Wolff gleefully wrenches unpredictability from the suffocations of day-to-day life, shatters balances of power without warning, and strips her characters down to their strangest and most unstable selves.
Wicked, discomfiting, delightful and wry, delivered with the deadly wit for which Wolff is known, ´Many People Die Like You´ presents the uneasy spectacle of people in solitude, and probes, with savage honesty, the choices we make when we believe no one is watching... or when we no longer care.
Perfect for fans of "Austerlitz" by W.G. Sebald and "The Months" by Javier Marías.
What people are saying about ´Many People Die Like You´:
"Fantastic. Quiet, thoughtful and, in spite of all the suffering, very funny." - Vi magazine
"Several of the stories are so funny that you'd probably bring joy to your neighbours if you read them aloud." - Skånska Dagbladet
"An immediate success for Lina Wolff... Many People Die Like You is a more than promising debut. Lina Wolff is a skilled stylist and a good storyteller." - Arbetarbladet
"´Many People Die Like You´ is full of life in motion. Depicted with such certainty that even the narrator's voice must at times give way to the swelling language. And so, Lina Wolff has arrived as one of the important voices in Swedish literature. Not least because of the freedom the texts create for themselves. A freedom full of pleasure and humor alongside ever-present earnestness." - Helsingborgs Dagblad
"Lina Wolff either quickly visits people who are happening to have a good, perhaps heightened conversation. Or, she tells a story with a beginning and end. Two approaches to the short story, here both are equally exciting to read." - Kulturnytt, Radio SR P1
"It's a matter of course of Lina Wolff's way of writing, as though each formulation and twist has been there all along, just waiting to be written down by her. Perhaps it is a matter of self-esteem, combined with a drive that draws you instantly and relentlessly into her stories. / ... / Wolff creates a hypnotic pull around her characters, making the reader wish they could remain in the story, how crass and chewy the lives portrayed can seem. The main characters are as often men as they are women, and Wolff writes with equal ease from a female and a male perspective. Human as humans are: sad and comical, petty and grand." - Svenska Dagbladet
"Wolff's brilliant language, twisted intrigue and black humor makes this debut the best I've read this year." - Femina magazine
Lina Wolff (1973- ) is a Swedish author. Having lived in Spain and Italy for several years working as a translator, Wolff arrived on the literary stage in 2009 with ´Många människor dör som du´ (´Many People Die Like You) and won the prestigious Vi Magazine Literature Prize in 2012 for her debut novel, ´Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs´. She has since won several other literary awards, including the August Prize for Fiction and the Aftonbladet Literature Prize.
