Helena von Zweigbergk is a Swedish author, journalist and film critic. She’s interested in all kinds of close relationships – the most important and perhaps most difficult aspect to master in our lives. In 2001, she made her literary debut with the crime novel What God Did Not See, which eventually became four books with the prison priest Ingrid as the main character. Ingrid solves riddles in the women's prison, but she also struggles with herself, her faith and with love.

von Zweigbergk made her big breakthrough with From the Mouth of the Volcano in 2008, depicting a dramatic marital crisis during a week's holiday in Sicily. von Zweigbergk says she wrote it in a state of uninterrupted embarrassment, telling us how we can behave when no one else is watching.

Since then, she has written several widely acclaimed and successful novels. She’s currently working on the novel project Dreams of Freedom. The first book 1959: Ingrid and Georg – A Love Story was published in 2022, followed by the second book 1979: Johanna and Ingrid – A Family Drama, published in 2024.

In 2026, von Zweigbergk has published two more books. 1999: Tom and Ingrid – Finding Home is included in her Dreams of Freedom project, while Clear Head, Warm Heart: Twelve Voices on Navigating a Crazy Time is a standalone.

Several of von Zweigbergk’s novels have been adapted for the stage, and in 2024 she wrote her first play, Gå sin väg, which premiered at the Helsingborg City Theatre.

Agent: Moa Alfvén

Published Mondial, August 2026
Genre Biography, Society
Pages 189

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The very moment I looked into my newborn grandchild’s eyes for the first time, something happened. Amidst the overwhelming joy, an unexpected impulse struck me: the urge to look away. I felt ashamed of the world we are leaving behind. The state it is in. The utterly appalling mess. Out of this sense of powerlessness, the idea for this book was born.

Helena von Zweigbergk has brought together twelve of the brightest and most empathetic people she knows to ask the questions we are all grappling with: What is happening? And how should we deal with it? The result is a collection of eye-opening essays covering everything from culture, economics and law to patriotism, shame and parenthood.

Clear Head, Warm Heart is not a blueprint; it is a liberating, exploratory and vital community in print. A guide to daring to doubt, opening up and rediscovering hope.

Published Norstedts, March 2026
Genre Novel
Pages 393

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All rights available

Ingrid and Tom haven’t been in touch for several years. Tom has turned his back on her; he has felt as though she is ashamed of him. A shame he has had to bear.

Ingrid’s daughter Johanna persuades Ingrid to go to therapy. She is reluctant at first, but ends up in a group of parents who, for various reasons, have all lost touch with their adult children. And for the first time, she dares to open up a little.

Then Tom’s teenage daughter shows up. She is the result of an affair in Budapest and has only had sporadic contact with her father whilst growing up. Now she is moving in with him, Nina and their young son. Old wounds are reopened, Nina questions Tom’s loyalties, and suddenly everything in Tom’s life has been turned upside down.

That’s when Ingrid is there for Tom. But does he dare approach her again to ask for help?

Published Norstedts 2024
Genre Novel
Pages 354
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When Ingrid meets her younger teaching colleague Torkel, she falls head over heels in love with him. He is different from all the men she has met before: open, seductive, caring and full of the new ideas of the 70s regarding how to be and live. And Ingrid lets him into the well-organised, independent life she has built up over many years since her divorce from Georg. The two children look at Torkel with great suspicion. Who is this man who has stormed into their mother's life and made her so alienated and changed? Tom has already moved out, but Johanna, who has just graduated and is eager to take her first steps into adulthood, is visibly disturbed by Torkel's insistent presence. Ingrid doesn't understand why Johanna is suddenly so stiff and withdrawn.

Torkel drills his way into their lives and seems to believe that he is the one who has the mission to free them all. And his demand for openness is both enticing and threatening.

Ingrid knows this is a relationship that won't last, but she intends to enjoy it while it does. Why can't her children be happy for her?

This is a tumultuous story about a situation that manages to shake an entire family to the core in the summer of 1979.

Published Norstedts, 2022
Genre Novel
Pages 380
All rights available

Stockholm in the late 1950s. Ingrid lives with her son Tom in a small flat. She is a teacher at a girls' school and enjoys being in charge of her own life. She is a welcome guest in the home of her friend Britt and her husband Ingvar, a well-known film producer, who hosts fancy parties with exciting guests.

Then she meets Georg, a young ambitious journalist, who has just moved to the city and has big dreams of modernity and a society that promises a better future for everyone.

Neither of them is in a hurry to commit, but when Ingrid becomes pregnant, they do what is expected of them, taking responsibility and planning for a family together. They share hopes for companionship and love, while also longing for a freer way of life. But how do they balance their expectations when they still live in an age of convention and tradition? And can they be sensitive to their own and each other's perceptions?

Helena von Zweigbergk's novel brings to life a time, a city, and a couple. A woman and a man from very different backgrounds, trying to share their dreams of a brighter future and a more modern way of living and loving.