Elin is asleep

Meeting with Stig Sundström, author and priest.

Axel would give anything to hear Elin's laughter again. He would sacrifice everything to feel her chubby hand in his once more. Axel is only ten years old, but it feels like it's his fault that Elin died. He looked away when she disappeared. When Elin needed his attention, he stood and stared at a fair-haired girl he knew nothing about.

Twenty years later, Axel is a priest at Elin's funeral church. He doesn't think about his little sister as often and finds that life works. But when the fair-haired girl reappears as a grown woman, Pandora's box is opened. Axel's coffee cup tips over in the bishop's office. It is left there. The coffee is sucked up by the carpet, while he throws away his collar and breaks up with God. But life goes on anyway.

Elin Sleeps is a dramatic story of historical injustice and strong emotions. The book is firmly rooted in the environment of Västerbotten.

Stig Sundström on his book Elin Sleeps:
My book deals with life issues that I think everyone can relate to: Love (this big topic!), losing someone or reconciling with both oneself and others.

I'm all ears when people tell me about the path to where they are today, regardless of where they are right now. So you can think pretty much what you want. I think that's how the main characters in my book would like us to meet each other.

The book also addresses issues of faith and doubt, written for mature adults. I have placed the story in a realistic setting, without censoring how people talk, think or act and hope that it will feel believable.

Stig Sundström comes from Stavaträsk, fifty kilometers northwest of Skellefteå, lives in Boliden and works as a priest in Norsjö parish. He has studied theology in Uppsala and Umeå and has worked for a few years in the intra-church movement EFS, before becoming a vicar in the Church of Sweden.

Stig has also studied psychodynamic psychotherapy at St. Luke's in Luleå and worked for some time as a talk therapist.

You can read more about Stig Sundström on the Ord & visor website.