The Decline of Books in Sweden: A Cultural Crisis

Victor Malm writes a Sunday column on the status of books in Sweden

CULTURE COLUMN. "It's not enough to think we're very skilled and important," says Marie Pettersson, publisher and CEO at Ellerströms, to DN. The Malmö-based publisher (which, for transparency, has published a book I've written) is facing tough times like many companies in creative and cultural industries. Sales are declining, support from the Swedish Arts Council is shrinking, and costs are rising.

On social media, Pettersson has appealed to followers for support—meaning, for people to buy the publisher's books—to get through the crisis, and the response has been enormous. "Orders are pouring in," she says.

It can't just be my thoughts that go to the sometimes viral fundraisers of Americans with sky-high medical bills. Thousands of people donate an outraged sum, for surely a human minimum, survival, being healthy, shouldn't lead to personal bankruptcy.

The comparison is, of course, flawed. Books are not healthcare, and the shrinking market for literature has nothing to do with the American healthcare system, but in both cases, the digital version of civil society steps in to temporarily compensate for a structural deficiency.

People think publishers are great, authors are great too, but buying and reading books?

Ellerströms is a small quality publisher that publishes academic books, essays, poetry, and novels. Some of their authors, like Anna Axfors, Isabella Nilsson, and Frans Wachtmeister, have received fine, positive responses in criticism and great attention, but such is now difficult to convert commercially. This is a major structural problem, a deficiency that no social media campaign can compensate for in the long run. People think publishers are great, authors are great too, but buying and reading books?

Nah.

If nothing is done, the gap between the cultural prestige of literature and the role of books in everyday life will only grow, compensated by literature festivals, author talks, and other events where you get to watch creative people like circus animals.

When you point out this problem, you surprisingly often get the response that no, you're wrong, reading is actually doing great, many people read books, then comes a reference to some numbers showing that many, more and more, actually listen to books on Storytel or Bookbeat, and yes, that's true. If no trend reversal occurs, the streamed audiobook will replace the physical book as the main product of the literature market already this year.

Must it be this way? Is it a natural law that technological development and phones push the book out of everyday life?

But listening and reading are distinct things, which is why teachers and parents are now warning about the consequences of schools' bizarre "listen-reading." And quality literature of the kind Ellerströms publishes does not become an audiobook—on streaming services, pulp literature dominates. In the Swedish Booksellers Association's sales report from 2024, Norstedts' publishing director Håkan Bravinger says that the print book's editions will not increase. The market is shrinking, that's a fact: More want to listen, fewer want to read.

For quality literature, the line is clear: decline and decay, slowly or quickly.

Must it be this way? Is it a natural law that technological development and phones push the book out of everyday life?

It may feel that way, but no, of course not. A turn for the better, however, requires us to come to terms with the most Swedish of all: The fear of appearing reactionary.

In a few years, this panicked fear got an entire school system to throw its textbooks on the fire and become world champions in digitization and apps, and nowadays testimonies abound about university students who neither can nor want to read. A highly predictable degeneration, which can indirectly function as a kind of cultural-political law: Social institutions do not have to follow societal development.

On the contrary, they should show resilience and continue to do important things that work, even when these become temporarily unpopular and trends diverge.

The declining popularity of books must be temporary. As information technology, it is still superior to video, image, and sound—societies built on writing work better than those built on images and sound, history has proven. Our institutions should develop in line with this insight.

I think of schools, as well as libraries, but also the media, and perhaps especially public service—compared to their commercial competitors, SR and SVT hardly take institutional responsibility for the status of literature and books. "Babel" and "Lundström's Book Radio" are good broad literature dissemination programs, but flagship educational programs in a cultural nation? Hardly. This is a crisis we must build our way out of. Start there.

Victor Malm is the culture editor at Expressen.