Light

An exceptional black comedy, Light is set in a small medieval town in Sweden. A man returns to the town unwittingly bringing with him a plague which ravages the population. Most are killed; the few survivors, the moral and social fabric of their lives destroyed, lose contact with the most basic values of civilization. Incest, bestiality, theft, fratricide and infanticide thrive. Only one couple struggles to retain a sense of moral behaviour amidst the chaos. Order appears to return in the shape of an emissary from the king but corruption also follows in his wake. Torgny Lindgren's unusual and memorable novel, set in a dark medieval landscape, is a fable about the fragility of our sense of right and wrong and about the moral anarchy which lurks not so very far beneath the surface of any society. It also possesses a dark and unforgiving humour all its own.