Finnish-Swedish Kjell Westö in conversation with Martin Glaz Serup

In The Black Diamond, the Finnish-Swedish writer Kjell Westö will engage in a conversation with Danish fellow writer Martin Glaz Serup.

Story of harmony and dissonance

Kjell Westö will talk about the choice of a world-famous Finnish conductor as the main character in Tritonus. A story that unfolds in the Finnish archipelago, to which the conductor has fled in order to move on in his luxury summer house by the Östersjön after defeats in both his professional and his love life. He alternates between harmony and dissonance in his search for answers to some acute existential questions: How can we live together, with all our differences and inequalities, in a time like ours?

The conversation will thus focus on topics such as community and loneliness, ambitions and the price of success, as well as the meeting between city dwellers and the inhabitants of the countryside. Tritonus is the musical term for the dissonant, so-called devil's interval.

Kjell Westö

The author is known for his historical depictions of Finnish society and the treatment of the collective traumas from the civil war in 1918. The trauma is also the focal point of Westö's novel Luftspejling 38, for which he won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 2014 – a prize he was also nominated for in 2001 and 2003. Kjell Westö has been awarded several major Nordic prizes, including The Finland Prize, Samfundet Di Nio's Grand Prize, Sveriges Radios Romanpris and the Swedish Academy's Finland Prize. Westö himself says that the core of his writing is an insatiable interest in the mystery of man and an indomitable will to find out why we are the way we are and why we do the things we do. He moves in both the past and the present and portrays a multitude of different types of people with contrasting views and different living conditions. His eighth and latest novel, Tritonus – an archipelago tale, was published simultaneously in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark on 21 August 2020.

The reviewers wrote:

'Kjell Westö delves deep into the psychology of two middle-aged men in this excellent and virtuoso novel' ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️, Jes Stein Pedersen, Politiken

'A great, beautiful, rich and cheerful novel', Marie Louise Kjølbye, Information

'Impressively sharp and reliable. (...) A satanic symphony of #MeToo, terror and vegetarian restaurants'⭐⭐⭐⭐, Jørgen Johansen, Berlingske

Westös is in conversation with poet, writer, editor etc. Martin Glaz Serup. He has, among other things, published nine poetry collections, six chapbooks and eleven children's books. He is current with the poetry collections Uendelige sommer (2020) and Endnu er dagen ikke spildt(2019).

Has received the Michael Strunge prize, the University of Copenhagen's Gold Medal and the Norwegian Art Fund's three-year work grant. Glaz Serup has a special connection to Finland. Not only have a number of his books been translated and published in Finland, which has led to an ongoing dialogue with many of his Finnish author colleagues, but he is also a board member of Kulturfonden för Finland och Danmark - which is also a partner for the event.

Musical harmony on stage

Also on stage are violinist Malin William-Olsson and pianist Kristoffer Hyldig, who musically take us into the universe of Kjell Westö's novel.

Since 2011, William-Olsson has been employed as concert master in the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stockholm. She has previously been concert master in Helsingborg's Symphony Orchestra.

Hyldig debuted in 2010 at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He has been awarded several prizes, including Jakob Gade's large grant, Léonie Sonning's Music Grant and Danish Music Critics's Artist Award.