Downstream

Sigfrid Siwertz follows the Selamb children from a bleak, loveless upbringing at the crumbling estate of Selambshof into the scramble of grown-up Stockholm. Peter, Hedvig, and their siblings each carry the coldness of that childhood into adulthood, and the novel traces how self-interest and the hunger for money harden into character. Written by a member of the Swedish Academy and first published in 1920 as Selambs, the book uses one family’s rise to indict the profiteering and moral drift of a society grown rich on the First World War. It works at once as a family chronicle and as a sharp piece of social criticism. This free edition is available as a PDF and EPUB, in the translation by E. Classen.