JACOB HIRDWALL
JACOB HIRDWALL is a Swedish writer, director, playwright and dramaturg whose work spans literature and the performing arts, combining intellectual precision with a strong visual and musical sensibility.
He has been affiliated with the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm since 2001, where he has worked as a dramaturg and director while also developing new writing for the stage.
He is the founder and artistic director of Ensembleverket, an independent theatre company known for interdisciplinary productions that integrate text, movement and music, often exploring contemporary social and existential themes.
Over the course of his career he has written and directed numerous stage works, as well as projects for radio and other media, and he led the Bergman Studio between 2017 and 2020, focusing on the development of new dramatic writing.
He made his literary debut with the novel Picnic at the End of the Road in 2019 (N/L), and his most recent novel, Map with White Spots, was published by Ordfront in 2026.
Photo: Nikola Stankovic
Agent: Martina Österling
WORKS
MAP WITH WHITE SPOTS
published ORDFRONT, 2026
In Iceland, at the crossroads between the present and the future, nine geneticists decide to try to postpone death. They have considerable resources at their disposal, as two major corporations have joined forces for a common goal—to use new technology to answer the question of whether it is possible to extend life.
Meanwhile, out in the Icelandic wilderness, an artist discovers a block of ice with contents that are unexpected, to say the least. The discovery piques the interest of the geneticists—but also that of the local police, who have just been assigned several cases of people vanishing without a trace.
In an interplay of voices, and against a backdrop of Iceland’s magnificent natural landscapes, we follow the geneticists’ search for a solution to the mystery.
They are accompanied by Sycorax, an AI entity that compassionately depicts the decline of civilization—and humanity’s attempts to escape its fate.
MAP WITH WHITE SPOTS is a story that moves freely between humor and melancholy. A multi-layered novel about power and powerlessness—freedom, hope, and reconciliation—in the Anthropocene.
REVIEWS
“It’s a life of luxury and isolation, confusion and focus in equal measure. Powerful scenes of nature are interwoven with contemporary reflections on genetics, transhumanism, and the meaning of life. (...) Whereas the debut was deliberately absurd, Map with White Spots is a more subdued satire on the contemporary creative elite’s desire to live forever even as the world comes to an end.”
- BTJ
“Hirdwall has written science fiction at its best—that is, fiction that deals with our own time. (...) Hirdwall is not a dramaturge for nothing; he knows how to create characters. And he knows that people living through disasters continue to eat and dress, fall in love, and go to work”
- Dagens Nyheter
“It’s entertaining, fast-paced, and I’m completely hooked—not least because of the chapter structure, with its short sections that form a chain of events viewed from many different perspectives. Every character serves a purpose, and it never gets boring, so to speak. (...) And if you’re looking for talented sci-fi, look no further.”
- Göteborgs-Posten
PICNIC AT THE END OF THE ROAD
