REVIEWS
"The friendship between Magnus and Kenneth is brilliantly portrayed. [...] Pizzeria Roma is a story about workers in the countryside, about male friendship, about small towns. Magnus is a character rarely portrayed in literature. Persson's quietness shines through at times."
Gefle Dagblad
"A quiet story about the thoughts and attitudes of older men in a small town is brilliantly portrayed in the novel Pizzeria Roma by author Elin Persson. Listening to the book read by Lennart Jähkel enhances the experience even further."
Västerbottens-Kuriren
"[...] extremely well portrayed. [...] Swedish readers are to be congratulated: here are two good examples of how political art can be formulated, beyond the expression of easily bought, overly obvious truisms (as in Kent, in other words)."
ubishi
"Stepping into Elin Persson's new novel Pizzeria Roma is a bit like entering a forest. Everything falls silent. This book is a peaceful place where things are allowed to take their time. It begins in the kitchen, with everyday chores, the dishwashing sponge, the scratched kitchen table, the wood that needs to be fetched. [...] Elin Persson has created a soft, word-rich world where I would love to be."
SR, Swedish national radio
"Above all, the terse but heartfelt relationship between him and his best friend Kenneth is one of the finest portrayals of friendship I have read in recent years. Similarly, the description of a long and gruelling working life with subsequent damage is convincing. Pizzeria Roma, in all its understatedness, is also an excellent example of modern Swedish working-class literature."
Expressen
"We can thank Elin Persson's style for the tenderness and caution in her portrayals of people and environments, in the sensuality with which she describes a beautifully laid weld, a fishing trip at dawn or a simple pizza at Rashid's, who doesn't even need to hear the order because he already knows. Persson has an ability that fills one with respect because it is also based on respect [...]"
Upsala Nya Tidning
"Pizzeria Roma goes straight into the tradition of Swedish working-class literature. The descriptions of the body as a tool, of the slowly crumbling welfare state and of a countryside gradually abandoned by society bring to mind Sara Lidman and Moa Martinson, but with a contemporary perspective. [...] Working-class literature has historically portrayed characters like Magnus, but in today's contemporary literature he is almost invisible. Persson gives a voice to a group that is rarely highlighted – those who support society, but who themselves risk being worn down and forgotten. This makes Pizzeria Roma an important and poignant novel about work, the body and dignity in a time when the security Magnus grew up with is slowly disappearing."
Arbetarskydd
"[...] a powerful story about manual labour and professional pride."
Arbetarbladet
"It's a book that I don't want to put down."
Litteraturmagasinet
"[...] so wonderful. [...] Persson lets Magnus' inner voice speak, and I find myself becoming deeply fond of him."
BTJ
"Heartfelt, melancholic and respectful. About loneliness, pain and quiet friendship. But also about welfare shortcomings and those who remain when others leave."
Dagens Nyheter, Lilian Sjölund
"Elin Persson handles many of the other expected rural elements with bravura. The dialect is spot on, as is the nostalgia, the bloody Stockholmers with their summer houses, the DIY spirit, the fishing and the booze. There is an exquisite balance here between the respectful dives into Magnus's psyche and the small observations from everyday life and proletarian working life. (…) It is about pain, but also very much about male friendship when it is as shy as a wolf. The relationship between Magnus and Kenneth is taciturn, and the distance between them is maintained even when they venture out to an island in a forest lake and sleep in hammocks overnight. It is as painful as it is atmospheric."
Jonas Thente, Dagens Nyheter
"The story revolves around Magnus, a man in his sixties in the inland region of southern Norrland, with work-related devilish pain in his body, on his way to sick leave and surgery. And rarely, despite the heavy content of the story, have I experienced such mental relaxation from reading a book. It is with Magnus that I want to swap lives. (…) If nothing else, I can recommend the book as a unique form of mindfulness, a much-needed rest for the brain, for those of us who never really manage to care for the moment we are actually in, which is usually a moment from what we have chosen to call the little life."
Västerbottens-Kuriren, Ida Nordung
"The best audiobook of the summer! (…) Rural inspiration of the highest order."
Nya Wermlands-Tidningen, Lasse Anrell
"Undoubtedly one of the best audiobooks of the year."
Dagens Nyheter, Jenny Lindh
"The friendship between Magnus and Kenneth is deeply moving reading, and rarely has the tenderer dimension of physicality in a male friendship been portrayed so richly and sensitively."
Västerbottens-Kuriren, Sara Meidell
”(…) extremely well portrayed. (…) Swedish readers are to be congratulated: here are two good examples of how political art can be formulated, beyond the expression of easily bought, overly obvious truisms (as in Kent, in other words)."
Bernur
