October Child - Paperback

by Linda Boström Knausgård (Author), Saskia Vogel (Translator)

From 2013 to 2017, Linda Boström Knausgård was periodically confined to a psychiatric ward and subjected to electroconvulsive therapy, resulting in the loss of memories. This is the story of her struggle against mental illness and isolation

"(Boström Knausgård's) first openly autobiographical book becomes an act of self-examination powerful enough to match if not surpass those of her ex-husband's."--The Guardian

From 2013 to 2017, Linda Boström Knausgård was periodically interned in a psychiatric ward where she was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy. As the treatments at this "factory" progressed, the writer's memories began to disappear. What good is a writer without her memory? This book, based on the author's experiences, is an eloquent and profound attempt to hold on to the past, to create a story, to make sense, and to keep alive ties to family, friends, and even oneself. Moments from childhood, youth, marriage, parenting, and divorce flicker across the pages of October Child. This is the story of one woman's struggle against mental illness and isolation. It is a raw testimony of how writing can preserve and heal.

Front Jacket

A fight against the dark

From 2013 to 2017, Linda Boström Knausgård was periodically interned in a psychiatric ward where she was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy. As the treatments at this "factory" progressed, the writer's memories began to disappear. What good is a writer without her memory? This book, based on the author's experiences, is an eloquent and profound attempt to hold on to the past, to create a story, to make sense, and to keep alive ties to family, friends, and even oneself. Moments from childhood, youth, marriage, parenting, and divorce flicker across the pages of October Child. This is the story of one woman's struggle against mental illness and isolation. It is a raw testimony of how writing can preserve and heal.

"Linda Boström Knausgård writes with her usual linguistic momentum, there's a kind of inviting energy in her voice. She balances her desperation with poetic precision and makes the urgency real for the reader."
Svenska Dagbladet

"October Child is a bold book, not in its openness but in its aloofness, in its faithfulness to literature and language rather than to reason and science. Against the great story of psychiatry with its simple, ready-made answers, Boström Knausgård insists on the irrationality in humans and on the suffering of each individual."
Gothenburg Post

Back Jacket

A fight against the dark

From 2013 to 2017, Linda Bostr?m Knausg?rd was periodically interned in a psychiatric ward where she was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy. As the treatments at this "factory" progressed, the writer's memories began to disappear. What good is a writer without her memory? This book, based on the author's experiences, is an eloquent and profound attempt to hold on to the past, to create a story, to make sense, and to keep alive ties to family, friends, and even oneself. Moments from childhood, youth, marriage, parenting, and divorce flicker across the pages of October Child. This is the story of one woman's struggle against mental illness and isolation. It is a raw testimony of how writing can preserve and heal.

"Linda Bostr?m Knausg?rd writes with her usual linguistic momentum, there's a kind of inviting energy in her voice. She balances her desperation with poetic precision and makes the urgency real for the reader."
Svenska Dagbladet

"October Child is a bold book, not in its openness but in its aloofness, in its faithfulness to literature and language rather than to reason and science. Against the great story of psychiatry with its simple, ready-made answers, Bostr?m Knausg?rd insists on the irrationality in humans and on the suffering of each individual."
Gothenburg Post

Author Biography

LINDA BOSTRÖM KNAUSGÅRD is a Swedish author and poet, as well as a producer of documentaries for national radio. Her first novel, The Helios Disaster, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature in the United States. Welcome to America, her second novel, was nominated for the prestigious Swedish August Prize and the Svenska Dagbladet Literary Prize in her home country, and was also longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award and the National Translation Award in the United States. October Child became a bestseller in Sweden and throughout Scandinavia, where it was published to great critical acclaim.

SASKIA VOGEL was born and raised in Los Angeles and now lives in its sister city, Berlin, where she works as a writer and Swedish-to-English literary translator. Her translations include work by leading female authors, such as Katrine Marcal, Karolina Ramqvist, Lina Wolff, and the modernist eroticist Rut Hillarp. Her debut novel Permission was published in four languages in 2019.