SOURCE: Bisztrav, George. “Documentarism and the Modern Scandinavian Novel.”¹ Scandinavian Studies 48, no. 1 (winter 1976): 71-83.

In the following essay, Bisztrav analyses the development of documentarian tendencies in the modern Scandinavian novel.

Early in 1969, the editors of Vinduet initiated a symposium to elucidate particular problems of the documentary tendency in modern literature. During the discussion, the Swedish guest, Per Olov Enquist, exclaimed: “Det er litt dumt dette med betegnelsen “dokumentær” kanskje, det sentrale spørsmålet i denne sammenheng er fiction eller non-fiction.”² There was hardly a more insightful remark to be heard at the symposium. Enquist raised the very problem of the traditional distinction between “literature” and “life,” or between the heroic, sweet, lofty, but “fictive” sphere of existence on the one hand, and the incoherent, accidental, petty, but “authentic” everyday events on the other hand.

What about the author who claims that he shows precisely the average...