When Mikael Yvesand wrote "Häng City" he did not see himself as an author. The text about a small gang of boys, on the border between childhood and adolescence, who planlessly drive around in Luleå during the summer vacation, was written in secret.
I just sat and wrote like a blog post, which never ended, in a Word document, he says.
"Like a nightmare"
With book two, it has not been possible to pretend that no one will ever read what he writes. But he has not wanted to pamper readers who have fallen for the tone and time description in the debut. Yvesand describes "Våran pojke" as "a little harder, a little darker, maybe not quite as much humor".
For me, it's quite like a nightmare. I love nightmares, it's the best I know to dream nightmares, to try to bring things from them, because it's strangely enough no darkness that I don't think can be handled.
Johan in "Våran pojke" grows up with his nerdy friends in a nameless city. In connection with high school, they disperse and he becomes suddenly very lonely. Without it being really intended, he commits two murders - one of them on a little boy.
If there is any underlying theme in what I have written, it is probably how loneliness can change and even destroy a person, he says.
"No self-confidence"
The murders occur, like in passing, at the same time as an absurd parallel story unfolds. The neighbor Jonna receives a visit from a persistent stranger who demands to be allowed to conduct investigative activities from her apartment, while her boyfriend inexplicably becomes younger and younger. Mikael Yvesand tells that there was initially a third, even more twisted story in the book - but that the publisher suggested that it should be removed.
I have, like, no self-confidence when it comes to my writing. I know exactly what I like, but if my publisher says remove these ten pages, then it will be a better book, so I think it will be ten pages from what I want, but I trust them, he says.
Even though the book is not autobiographical, he has taken much of the feeling from the time around the high school years.
Those years 2004-2006 were right in the middle of my life. You were, like, completely alone, very ugly, had a lot of acne, didn't want to be seen, had no money and started thinking that it's probably damn over for me.
Now I'm well okay, but it feels like it's not many millimeters from it could have become something completely different.
Born: 1986 in Luleå.
Works: Full-time at Stim, writes in the evenings, weekends and on vacation.
Background: Debuted in 2022 with the novel "Häng City" which was awarded the Borås Tidning debutant prize. It was also nominated for several other prizes.
Is: Fascinated by the police's preliminary investigations and often reads so-called fup: ar.
About the Linköping murders that occurred in 2004 when he was in high school: "I fantasized a lot about who could have done this thing and thought I saw someone who resembled me or people you remembered. That it was probably not an evil person, but a lonely and confused person, that it just happened to happen."
About finding writing time: "On Fridays, I usually go to some bar and sit in a corner with AirPods and write on the phone. I would never be able to write a whole book like that, but it's usually possible to use loose half hours in that way."
