FRANS WACHTMEISTER

 
 

FRANS WACHTMEISTER (b. 1993) has carved a distinct path in contemporary Swedish literature. At a young age, he relocated 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 its 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.

He is currently working on his next novel, to be published next autumn by Norstedts.

Photo: Carolina Wiehe Welroos

 
 
 

PRAISE FOR FRANS WACHTMEISTER

“This author possesses a distinctive way of storytelling. With simple means — humor, violence, terrifying Buddhist wooden sculptures — he creates something new within the contemporary novel.”
Dagens Nyheter

“Wachtmeister has a sharp eye for relationships, power, hierarchies, and dynamics that manifest in both sex and business (…) He writes with a clear, distilled language and an almost unfailing precision of tone in every sentence.”
Svenska Dagbladet

“We are talking about a cynic with stylistic bite and vast amounts of pitch-black humor, making the reader snort and writhe with laughter as all hope slowly crumbles away.”
Göteborgs-Posten

“I truly appreciate Frans Wachtmeister’s ruthless candor.”
SR, Swedish Radio

“Frans Wachtmeister is a natural storyteller; he writes fluently, admirably straightforward and simple, with touches of dark humor. The theme — alienation versus assimilation and the (futile?) human longing to overcome loneliness and belong — is perpetually relevant.”
Upsala Nya Tidning

WORKS

LOST GROUND

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 — and also presents a theory of the geography of love in a global age.

 

TERRITORIAL CLAIMS

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 his struggle increasingly desperate. Eventually, Hans realizes 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 humor 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.

Nominated for both the Katapult Prize and the Borås Tidning Debutant Prize.