Lit in Translation

The Wednesday Club

Hägring 38

Kjell Westö (born 1961)

Translated by Neil Smith

English editions

In English

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Europe is sliding towards war in 1938, but Helsinki would rather go to the cinema, dance and shop, convinced that the civil war of 1918 lies safely behind it. Newly divorced, the lawyer Claes Thune hires Matilda Wiik, thirty-six, efficient, quiet and impossible to read. Every week his old companions gather in his office as the Wednesday Club to drink and debate, yet hardening politics drive them apart: a physician enthralled by strength and a businessman out for himself drift towards the far right, while Thune and Robi, the psychiatrist now dating his ex-wife, hold liberal views. Then Matilda recognises a guest as the 'Captain' who abused her in a prison camp in 1918, though he has no idea who she is. At the new Olympic Stadium, a race exposes the elite's offhand antisemitism.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form
Novel
Length
299 pages in the original
Genres
Historical, Politics (assigned by AI)
Set in
Finland, 1938
First published
2013 by Schildts & Söderströms
Author's age
52 when first published
ISBN

9789515232069 (original)

9780857053510 (MacLehose Press, United Kingdom)

More
Wikidata