Fig Tree pre-empts Andrev Walden's Swedish bestseller

Fig Tree has pre-empted Andrev Walden’s debut novel Jävla Karlar (English translation: Bloody Men), the winner of Sweden’s August Prize.  

Assistant editor Ella Harold acquired world English-language rights from Gustaf Bonde at Politiken Literary Agency. Fig Tree will publish as a lead hardback in summer 2025, with English translation by Ian Giles. Translation rights have been sold in nine European countries, with film rights under negotiation. 

Since its publication in August 2023, the novel has sold more than 170,000 copies in Sweden. Across 2023, Walden was Sweden’s bestselling Swedish author, and second bestselling author overall. In November, the novel won the August Prize, Sweden’s most prestigious literary award.  

The novel begins in the winter of 1983. In the woods outside the Swedish town of Norrköping, a house is shaken by a violent argument – and, in the aftermath, seven-year-old Andrev’s mother lets him in on a secret: his father is, in fact, not his father. His real father has shoulder-length hair and lives in a land far away. It’s the best thing little Andrev has ever heard. He feels like he’s the boy in a story book, a book about a boy whose father is the king of a magical land, with genies who can take him there. But there will be no spirits in Andrev’s story. Only new fathers who are not his. 

Harold said: “I was immediately taken with this novel’s utterly unique voice: Walden writes his child narrator’s perspective with a sublime combination of naivety, humour and pathos, and strikes a perfect balance between joy and sadness, fear and hope. Jävla Karlar sparkles with originality and charm. It is storytelling at its finest, and it is a huge honour to be publishing it.” 

Walden added: “I am very excited that Fig Tree is opening this door to the English-speaking world for my debut novel. Many doors have opened since it was released in the autumn of 2023, but none that I have dreamed of like this one. Partly because the door leads to the cultural sphere that has meant the most to me, partly because it is my father’s language and we have never really found a way to communicate in real life.”