We´re glad to announce that Swedish author Marie Bennett (Malmö, 1969) has become a Pontas client with her debut novel Hotell Angleterre (currently being submitted to publishers). Marie studied Art History in the University of Lund (Sweden) and Journalism in the City University (England). She lived in Paris, California and Madrid before landing in London, where she settled to work in media and as a reader for different UK publishing houses and where she has lived with her family for the last 18 years.
About Hotell Angleterre:
Sweden, 1940-1944. The Second World War rages in neighboring occupied Denmark, German bombs falling over Copenhagen, just a stone-throw away from Malmö. Though Sweden is supposed to be neutral, the war is knocking on its door and there is a great paranoia against Communists and other "social enemies" throughout the country, and also a fear of spies and traitors. It is a period of rationing, insecurity, censorship, military abuse and harsh winters, when the worst thing you could call someone was not "Nazi" but "communist".
The story in Hotell Angleterre takes off during the dramatic but today completely forgotten event that took place during this time in the North of Sweden, when a couple of Swedish soldiers froze to death during the winter of 1939 and, as a consequence of this, the other soldiers mutinied against officers. The novel follows the lives of Georg, a young soldier from Malmö that gets sent to the North, his wife Kerstin, who remains at home witnessing the war in Europe from the front seat, and the enigmatic Viola, suspected of being a spy and with whom Kerstin maintains a brief affair during her husband’s absence. Their lives, like everyone’s at the time, are torn by war, politics and fear. Love, betrayal, compassion and forgiveness, and the universal human will to survive and move forward in the face of adversity, are all present in this unputdownable and gripping debut by Marie Bennett.
More information: Marina Penalva-Halpin – marina@pontas-agency.com