Hjalmar Soderberg

Hjalmar Söderberg (1869-1941) was one of the most distinguished of Scandinavian novelists. He was born and raised in Stockholm and spent the last twenty-five years of his life in Copenhagen. After working as a civil servant, he turned to journalism and eventually devoted himself full-time to a literary career. In addition to novels he wrote short stories and plays as well as literary criticism and philosophical works about religion. He has been praised for his fictional vignettes of Stockholm life and for being a forerunner in the use of psychoanalytic theory and stream-of-consciousness in his fiction. Söderberg’s novels include Confusions, Martin Birck’s Youth, and The Serious Game; Doctor Glas is regarded as his masterpiece.