Martin Birck’s Youth

Hjalmar Soderberg drew on his own Stockholm boyhood for this melancholy portrait of a sensitive young man coming of age at the close of the nineteenth century. In quiet, impressionistic scenes the novel follows Martin Birck from a devout childhood through school, the slow loss of his faith, a dull clerk’s post, and a tender but shadowed love affair. Little happens in the way of plot; Soderberg’s art lies in mood, in the ache of passing time, and in Martin’s clear-eyed disenchantment with the promises of religion and ambition. First published in 1901, it stands among the finest examples of Swedish fin-de-siecle prose. This English translation is available as a free PDF and EPUB edition.