WANDA BENDJELLOUL
Wanda Bendjelloul, a journalist, film critic, and author, has long been a prominent voice in Swedish media. She works as a critic for Dagens Nyheter, appears regularly on TV4’s Nyhetsmorgon, and contributes to P1 Kultur and cultural publications. Her experience spans film production, public lectures, and numerous cultural panels and festivals. This diverse background gives her fiction a documentary quality — grounded, observant, and socially engaged.
In her debut novel Dalenglitter (2020), Bendjelloul tells the story of a young woman growing up in Enskededalen, a working-class suburb in southern Stockholm. With sharp insight and vivid storytelling, Bendjelloul explores the effects of class, heritage, and social mobility on identity and belonging. The novel is a striking and emotionally resonant portrayal of perseverance.
In 2024, Bendjelloul published Minnets labyrint (The Labyrinth of Memory), a documentary novel that delves into the fragility of memory and the complexities of personal and political identity. The book begins with a deeply personal event — a reunion with her mother after fifteen years of silence, only to find her suffering from dementia. As her mother’s memories begin to fade, Bendjelloul is compelled to retrace her own past.
Blending personal narrative with historical investigation, Minnets labyrint examines the reliability of memory and the ways in which our stories — both private and collective — are shaped, distorted, or erased.
She is currently writing on her next novel.
Credit: Sofia Runarsdotter
Agent: Erik Larsson
WORKS
THE LABYRINTH OF MEMORY
PUBLISHED wEYLER, 2024
GENRE documentary novel
PAGES 297
RIGHTS SOLD
ALL RIGHTS AVAILABLE
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the Swedish-Libyan Friendship Association organized numerous trips to Libya where participants were immersed in Gaddafi's ideology. In Tripoli, young people from around the world gathered for the dictator's annual indoctrination camps. Among these visitors was Wanda Bendjelloul.
After fifteen years apart from her mother, the author discovers their shared history is fading away. As she begins reconstructing her past, memories resurface—particularly of her journey to Libya. What circumstances led her there in the first place?
The Labyrinth of Memory is a documentary novel that uncovers a largely forgotten phenomenon. Drawing from personal and collective memories, films, and literature, Wanda Bendjelloul crafts a narrative exploring the intersection of global politics and the reliability of memory.
DALENGLITTER: A NOVEL ABOUT HARD WORK
