This article analyses the relationship between the doctrine of socialist realism and Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) working-class literature. It focuses on three authors who were part of the Scandinavian delegation at the First Congress of the Soviet Writers’ Union in Moscow – the Swedes Moa Martinson (1890–1964) and Harry Martinson (1904–78), and the Dane Martin Andersen Nexø (1869–1954) – and also on a number of influential working-class writers and critics who contributed to the discussions of socialist realism in Scandinavia: the Swedes Ivar Lo-Johansson (1901–90) and Erik Blomberg (1894–1965), and the Danes Julius Bomholt (1896–1969), Harald Herdal (1900–79) and Hans Kirk (1898–1962). Even if the direct impact of socialist realism in Scandinavia was limited, it still received attention in literary debates. This article argues that the analysis of the relationship between socialist realism and Scandinavian working-class literature can generate new insights not only about two specific left literary cultures, but also regarding the conceptualization of such cultures in an international context. The nature of the relation and the exchange between the doctrine of socialist realism and Scandinavian working-class literature in the late 1930s, the article argues, emphasizes the heterogeneity of the cultural geography of socialist world literature due to its multifaceted manifestations in different national and regional contexts. Thus, the study of this literature must stress the existence of many, different and even potentially conflicting left literatures.

Kapitlet diskuterar två litterära skildringar av prekära arbetsförhållanden: David Ericssons roman Taxfree (2004), som handlar om transportarbete, och Elinor Torps litterära reportagebok om städarbete Rent åt helvete (2023). Dess syfte är att belysa och diskutera skönlitteraturens förmåga att bidra till förståelse av klassamhället och, i förlängningen, till kampen mot dom orättvisor som präglar detta samhälle.

The history of Swedish working-class literature is often described as an evolution from a politically charged literature within the labour movement to a significant strand in national literature. However, this narrative obscures the fact that the labour movement has remained a crucial platform for working-class literature in Sweden at least until the 1970s, particularly through trade-union magazines where literature has been published and discussed. One effect of this has been that research on Swedish working-class literature has predominantly focused on prominent works and authors in national literature, thereby overlooking the complexity of its history and of its relationship to the national literary canon.

This essay aims to restore some of this lost complexity and contribute to a more nuanced historical account through a case study of the publication and discussion of working-class literature in one of the most important Swedish trade union publications: Kommunalarbetaren [The Municipal Worker], the membership magazine of the Swedish Municipal Workers’ Trade Union Association. The study is divided into two parts: a survey of literature published and discussed in the magazine from 1911 to 1970, and a detailed analysis of its literary content in 1970.

The essay addresses three key questions: the extent to which Kommunalarbetaren served as a platform for working-class literature; whether Kommunalarbetaren can be understood as being part of a labour-movement counter public sphere where specific kinds of working-class literature are published and where this literature is understood in specific ways; and how an analysis of its literary material can enrich the understanding of Swedish working-class literature’s history and its relationship to the national literary canon. The two main findings are that Kommunalarbetaren highlighted authors and works other than those recognized in national literature, and that it often emphasized the authors’ personal labour experiences and engagement in the social-democratic labour movement. The latter contrasts with the dominant focus in the realm of national literature where the working-class writers who received the most attention often had rather limited experiences of manual labour or aligned with radical Left ideologies. Thus, Kommunalarbetaren represents a labour-movement counter literary sphere with a distinct working-class literature and a distinct discourse about this literature.

This chapter argues for the importance of developing an understanding of working-class literature that both acknowledges its heterogeneity and historicity and makes it possible to conceptualise it as a cross-historical and transnational phenomenon. It begins by documenting recent critical and theoretical trends in the study of working-class literature and argues that this collection of essays contributes to these debates by focusing on three key areas; the relationship between working-class literature and the canon within specific national traditions, the ways in which working-class literature establishes itself within nations and national literatures, and the role played by international exchanges in the construction of working-class literature. This chapter continues by summarising the various essays included in the volume and concludes by considering some of the avenues for further research which are prompted by those essays, particularly the need to attend to working-class literature beyond Europe and the Anglosphere.

This book offers a pioneering study of the national, transnational, and international dimensions of working-class literature. It explores both the historically and geographically varied nature of the relationship between working-class literatures and national ‘canons’, and the importance of international and transnational exchanges in the development of working-class literature. Through a series of detailed case studies (its sixteen essays analyse working-class literatures from the early nineteenth century to the present day and cover thirteen countries across three continents) this collection not only analyses the factors which lead to the incorporation or exclusion of working-class literature from a given national ‘canon’, but also traces the various ways in which working-class literatures participate in international networks of exchange. With its wide historical range, extensive geographical coverage and broad definition of working-class literature, which includes samba poetry as well as socialist realism, this collection charts new territory for the study of working-class literature.