The Writer Who Hated the Swedish Language
Directed by Lina Puranen, Karin Tötterman2025 48m[Documentary](/on-demand/category/documentary), [Biography](/on-demand/category/biography)
7.1
Antti Jalava (1949-2021) is the author of the modern classic "Asfaltblomman/The Asphalt Flower", whose raw portrayal of life as a Swedish Finn sparked great debate when it was published in 1980. This documentary is about a forgotten writing style and explores what it means to be uprooted from one's homeland and roots as a child. The loss of language and the racism that Jalava was exposed to became a driving force for his entire writing, and he is one of the first to write about the migration experience in Swedish. But writing in Swedish was not a voluntary choice - but something Jalava was forced to do.
