Ulla Isaksson's work spans almost six decades of Swedish literary history. Her debut took place in 1940, and she has strong ties to some of the writers of that generation, especially Lars Ahlin and Sivar Arner, but she is difficult to categorize as a representative of any literary decade. A writer with clear religious orientation, she is closer to Pär Lagerkvist, Selma Lagerlöf, and, among Scandinavian writers, Sigrid Undset (although Undset wrote from a Catholic perspective) than to her 1940s cohorts; questions about God's existence and nature are central to her work. Hailed by critics for her psychological sensitivity, her in-depth character analysis, and her daring choice of topics, Isaksson is by no means a popular writer in the pejorative sense. Her books have always required a commitment from the reader to enter a fictional world where much is alien and disturbing. In almost all...