ABOUT
THE BOOK

Setting out in 1947 from a small village where an epidemic of tuberculosis rages, Robert Maser, a travelling garment salesman who may or may not be the fugitive Nazi Martin Bormann, and the local school-teacher, Lars, embark on a bizarre quest to find the world’s best Swedish hash – a culinary marvel whipped up from an assortment of grains and entrails and renowned among the peasants for its delectability and restorative powers.

Their adventures are narrated from the present in a faux-naif style by a 107-year-old newspaper reporter, who was witness to the events and has waited until now to confront his own relationship to life and death, happiness and suffering, and the power of art to express life’s ambiguities.