Crisis

Malin Forst, a devout twenty-year-old student at a Stockholm teachers’ college in the 1930s, is thrown into turmoil when a crisis of faith collides with her growing awareness of her desire for another woman. The novel follows her struggle to reconcile who she is with who she has been taught to be.

Why Read This

Crisis is the most autobiographical of Boye’s novels. Written at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Sweden, it is a remarkably brave book, drawing directly on Boye’s own experience of religious doubt and queer identity. The novel moves between poetic prose, social realism, fragments of letters, and imagined dialogues, making it one of the most formally inventive Swedish novels of its era.

If Kallocain shows Boye’s talent for political allegory, Crisis reveals the personal fire behind it. The two books illuminate each other: the dystopian surveillance state of Kallocain feels different once you understand the real-world suppression Boye herself endured. First published in English in 2020, the novel is finally reaching the international audience it deserves.

What to Expect

A modernist novel that experiments with form more freely than Kallocain. The narrative fractures into different modes and voices, reflecting Malin’s psychological fragmentation. It is not a difficult read in terms of language, but it asks the reader to sit with ambiguity and emotional intensity. The prose is lyrical without being ornate.