Frans Wachtmeister (b. 1993) has carved a distinct path in contemporary Swedish literature. At a young age he moved to Tokyo, where he has been based for over a decade, immersing himself in both art history and the Japanese language — an experience that continues to inform and enrich his writing.

In 2023, Wachtmeister made his debut with the novel Territorial Claims, which earned him nominations for both the Borås Tidning Debutant Prize and the Katapult Prize, as well as the Lily and Tage Fridh Scholarship. His follow-up novel, Lost Ground, confirmed his ambition and versatility as a writer.

Wachtmeister’s work stands out for its transnational sensibility and probing of territory, both literal and metaphorical, and for the way he investigates the dynamics of the encounter between Europe and the world. Writing from the vantage point of someone who moves between geographies, languages, and cultural codes, he brings remarkable clarity and daring to the page, revealing a rare combination of formal finesse and intellectual curiosity.

His latest work, Haven, was published in August 2026 by Norstedts.

Agent: Erik Larsson

Published Norstedts, August 2026
Genre Literary fiction
Pages 300
All rights available

In her search for security, PR consultant Erika and her partner have left Malmö for the neighbouring suburb of Staffanstorp. But when their garage is broken into, they begin to consider a move to the municipality’s newly built gated community. At the same time, their relationship is quietly falling apart. Do they truly have anything left in common? And what is the point of living behind walls if you have nothing worth defending?

During a trip to Sharm el-Sheikh, Erika is given the chance to start over. Here, solitary European women mingle with young Egyptian men, all of them dreaming of a better life on the other side of the Mediterranean. At the resort, Erika begins to envision a project that is as provocative as it is seductive: she wants to build something truly worth defending.

Haven is a novel about exoticism, desire, and nostalgia, about the right to be oneself. It paints a striking vision of Europe not only as a place, but as an idea: a space, as much as a moment in time, in which to live and create.

Published ellerströms, 2025
Genre Literary fiction
Pages 256
All rights available

For the protagonist of Frans Wachtmeister’s new novel, life has come to a standstill. His Japanese girlfriend has left him, and when he finally also loses his job as a headhunter, he begins preparing for the end. In the company of a failed Buddhist sculptor, he leads a shadow-life on the outskirts of Tokyo, at times accepting his fate, at times struggling against it. His Japan grows narrower, increasingly hostile, soon driving him toward one last desperate attempt to regain the favour he has lost.

With the same cynical gaze directed at both Asia and his own continent, Frans Wachtmeister writes from a European’s perspective about identity, regret, and guilt — while also presenting a theory of the geography of love in a global age.

Published ellerströms, 2023
Genre Literary fiction
Pages 250
All rights available

I’ve just turned thirty. Like so many others who can’t quite find their place in their own country, I ended up here, in Japan. I had no particular goal; it just happened. I probably thought it might be exciting to experience something different. A foolish maxim to live by. I still haven’t found any goal, and the excitement is gone. After almost ten years, you get used to most things — even the worst of them. And everything becomes just as lifeless and dull as back home.

Hans, an alienated translator at an art museum in Tokyo, broods over the impossibility of assimilation. When he is forced to accompany his German colleague Weiss on a research trip to Kyushu, he gets the chance to study its conditions up close. As they wander through the Japanese wilderness, the idealistic Weiss does everything he can to become one with his new country, but his efforts remain fruitless and he becomes increasingly desperate. Eventually, Hans realises he must help the German abandon, once and for all, his belief in the boundless malleability of identity.

Frans Wachtmeister’s debut novel, echoing writers such as Michel Houellebecq and Shusaku Endo, is a pessimistic portrait of the hopeless yearning for belonging. With black humour and unsparing clarity, he depicts the soul’s incurable loneliness in a global age where every attempt to fit in ends in catastrophe or, at best, in limbo.