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.