A Fortune Foretold

Agneta Pleijel writes a painful yet humorous autobiographical novel about childhood in the aftermath of World War II.

A prophecy is received by a beloved aunt, a prophecy that her young niece eagerly waits to see fulfilled.

The story takes place in the 1950s in the suburbs of Stockholm, in the university town of Lund, and in the United States. Neta’s childhood is in disarray. She reads—words give form to the vagueness of existence—and is busy thinking about the female sex, family, and the stupendous diversity of people in the world. Her father, a mathematician, and her mother, a musician, are in constant conflict, but
she loves them both. Gradually Neta realizes that she’s grown up in a lie and that she must step carefully through the war zone of her parents’ marriage.

This is an insightful tale about the search for truth, morality, and a place of your own in the world.

Agneta Pleijel was born in Stockholm in 1940. She has worked as a critic and cultural editor for various Swedish newspapers and magazines. She served as president of the Swedish PEN between 1987 and 1990, and has been a member of the academy Samfundet de Nio (The Nine Society) since 1988. From 1992 to 1996, Pleijel was a professor at the Institute of Drama in Stockholm. Apart from being one of Sweden’s foremost novelists, she is also a playwright and a poet. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Marlaine Delargy has translated novels by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Kristina Ohlsson, and Helene Tursten, as well as The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist and Therese Bohman’s Drowned and The Other Woman. She lives in England.