Walter Bart

Maybe Sweden is about five book worms on a reading holiday in a beautiful country house somewhere in South Europe. By the pool, in the hammock and even round the campfire they are buried in their books. Or they discuss literature. This changes when they come across a sleeping Ghanaian in the garden. The rather mousy Mira takes care of his ill mother and, soon, of other stranded boat people. The haven of peace changes into an aid station, not to everyone's pleasure. Harmless collisions - does the Ghanaian have to read Michel Houellebecq to gain a better understanding of Europe? - get out of hand more and more, until the idyll crumbles.

In 1940s Amsterdam, Jewish Council co-chairman David Cohen and his daughter Virrie have their bond tested as they pursue increasingly opposing ways of safeguarding their community under Nazi rule.