Sweden, 1949. A boy of 15 chances upon a woman of 51. What ensues is cataclysmic, life-altering. All the more because it cannot be spoken of.

Looking back in late old age at an encounter that transformed him suddenly yet utterly, P.O. Enquist, a titan of Swedish letters, “comes out” – but in ways entirely novel and unexpected.

Enquist died in 2020. The book he had always seen as the one he could not write was to be his last.

Runner up in the Bernard Shaw Prize for Swedish Translation 2018.