In a guest post for European Literature Night, featured author Jonas T. Bengtsson from Denmark muses on society and freedom, concepts which inform his latest novel.

Has anybody ever met society? Shaken hands with society, yelled at society. Gone on a three day bender with society, or made sweet love to society?

Coming from the cold north one of the themes that so often pops up when books are being discussed or reviewed is the author’s take on society. Or criticism towards society. Like the author’s main job is to scrutinize society, thinly veiled and in a slightly more entertaining way than an angry letter to a newspaper.

A friend asked me if he should sell his apartment, his small boat, his car. If I thought that was the right thing to do. He and his girlfriend were considering travelling the world for as long as the money would last. 

I asked him to stay put. When they returned from Goa or Vegas or the Australian outback they would feel just as constricted and unfree as before the trip. They would continue life in much the same way as they had done previously.

 I asked him to find freedom where he was. By realizing that where he was in life was a choice. And that if there was anything he wanted to change he should probably just do it. Everything he did would come with a price, and if he wasn’t willing to pay it, that would be a choice as well.

So why this rant?

In my latest novel A Fairy Tale I write about a father who couldn’t care less about society. Or put in a different way, he is not at all concerned about changing it. He knows that freedom is not something that will be granted him by anybody else. It is something he has to take for him self.  So what is the price for freedom, and is it too high?

A Fairy Tale was originally published as Et eventyr in Copenhagen in 2011 (British Library shelfmark YF.2013.a.5667). The translation is published by House of Anansi Press. The British Library also holds Jonas T. Bengtsson’s first novel Aminas breve (‘Amina’s Letters’, Copenhagen, 2005; YF.2006.a.28994).