She describes "The Sun Always Shines on Tjurkö" as a relationship novel with elements of dark feelgood and kitchen sink realism: Grandma Mirijam has just died and bequeathed the cottage in the Karlskrona archipelago to the children and grandchildren. The fate of the cottage will now be decided during a Midsummer weekend.
The story is loosely based on Emma Bouvin's family history, although it was not as dramatic.
For us, it ended well, but I realized that inheriting summer cottages contributes to many quarrels and is a grateful environment for a novel about relationships, says Emma Bouvin.
In the book, she explores parent-child relationships from different perspectives, both the grandmother's relationship with her sons and the sons' relationship with their children. But in a way, also her own relationship with her two children.
Becomes a collision
When I'm working abroad, I do it intensively and I'm tired when I get home. At the same time, the children expect everything to be wonderful when I'm back. Then it can be a real collision.
One week every month, she is in her second home in Jerusalem, where she reports on Gaza. Emma Bouvin's parents were also foreign correspondents, her father in the Middle East and her mother in Russia.
My parents often said that I didn't understand how well I had it compared to children in other countries when I was sad.
Now she has to bite her tongue not to repeat her parents' mistakes. How one is in one's relationships seems to be inherited in the same way as a cottage.
Several of the characters in the book are actually based on me, says Emma Bouvin with a laugh and notes that she is probably a bit "megalomanic".
Stands on two legs
She writes on her mobile when she sits on the plane. She says she seeks, and needs, contrasts.
I like having one foot in Jerusalem and one foot at home with the family in Sweden, she says.
It was also contrasts she was looking for when she decided to write "The Sun Always Shines on Tjurkö".
A normal working day, I can visit places where people are shot in front of my eyes. Then I'm so into describing what's happening that the feelings don't have time to catch up with me.
They do, however, when she is at home in her apartment in Jerusalem.
Darkness and light
Getting into a fictional novel project was a way to get an outlet for the tough feelings and thoughts I push away when I'm out working.
But she also experiences nice things, she says, like the warmth between people.
– There is both light and darkness at the same time, and it can be fun even when it's terrible, says Emma Bouvin.
Works as a Middle East correspondent and columnist for Dagens Nyheter.
Current with her first novel "The Sun Always Shines on Tjurkö" on July 28.
Has previously written several children's books and released a book with her columns. Will release a new children's book soon.
Plans another relationship novel, this time about relationships on vacation.
