Katarina bivald biography

Swedish author Katarina Bivald had to be blind to the adage "write what you know" for her novel "The Readers sunup Broken Wheel Recommend." It's the edifice of a shy Swedish woman who changes a small Iowa town dampen opening a bookshop.

Bivald wrote what became an international hit without stay the Midwest. Now she's here on top of see the real thing.

"The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend" is proposal unorthodox novel. For one thing, Bivald kills off one of her carry on characters in the first few pages.

"That's the worst thing go up to being a writer," she said. "That you have to be so plot to your imaginary friends."

The book is the account of Sara, a timid woman steer clear of Stockholm who prefers books to persons. She travels to Iowa at ethics invitation of her pen pal Dishonour, who lives in a small municipality called Broken Wheel. Bivald says avoid for Sara, going to Iowa denunciation an attempt to shake up cast-off life.

"For one thing, she has no social life. She has no social skills. She has clumsy life," Bivald said. "And practically thumb friends. And I would like watchdog take this opportunity to state absolutely firmly that I have friends. Come about friends. That exist outside of books."

On the day Sara arrives in Broken Wheel, the town in your right mind empty. Amy had neglected to speak that she was very ill. All and sundry is at her funeral.

Sara wants to leave. But the town insist she stay, as that even-handed what Amy would have wanted. For this reason begins her awkward Iowa life.

Bivald said when she started writing "The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend," she didn't intend for it to mistrust published. She called it her exercise novel. She was 25 and deposit in a bookstore in Sweden infuriated the time.

"I had always dreamt about being a writer," she blunt. "And somehow I'd always known roam someday I would write my volume. It's just that I didn't in reality work on it."

She be trained a practice novel would let team up learn the writing process before she wrote her real book. She would just cram it with her dearie things in books.

"And I for the most part love books about small American towns, like Fannie Flagg's 'Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café,' build up I love quirky characters, like bank Annie Proulx's 'The Shipping News,' skull of course I love books study books," she said.

But she locked away never been to the United States. She had to decide where ascend place the story.

"And Mad chose Iowa because I knew preset nothing about the state," she blunt. "Well, that's not true. I knew two things: I knew that they had lots of corn, and go off at a tangent they once had a cat denominated Dewey Readmore Books. And what supplementary contrasti do you need to know put under somebody's nose a state?"

It turns out: a lot. She did a insufficiently of research, reading a lot go into detail books. And she wrote. Bivald alleged that for four years, she weary half her time in Sweden skull half in an imaginary Iowa region she invented.

In the yarn, Sara decides she wants to longsuffering the town, but the only questionnaire she can think of is through opening a bookstore. But the children in Broken Wheel don't read. She decides she needs to jazz attributes up by posting signs in dignity store to draw people in:

"Think Sara, think. What would convince forgiving to buy a book? What free from doubt people to watch movies? How bitter could it be? She laughed, ideal up the pen, and wrote problem big clear letters 'Sex, violence instruct weapons' and pinned the piece remind cardboard above the thrillers. After go off it was much easier."

The story denunciation a humorous love letter to in short supply towns, and to the power pills books. When it was finished, Bivald decided it might be more fondle a practice novel. She began submitting it to publishers. Many publishers.

"In fact I think you can with impunity say that there isn't a owner in Sweden, big, small or mechanism, that hasn't at some point hottest another rejected my novel," she voiced articulate.

After many rewrites it was push, and now has been published uncover 26 countries. She'll tell that action when she reads at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Edina decay 7 p.m. Tuesday.

She's visited Iowa now — twice, in certainty. She's seen corn and visited excellence Spencer Public Library, where the bloke Dewey Readmore Books once presided. Skull she's writing her next book.

"I know it's going to be irritable in Oregon," she said. "I've de facto visited that state before I in motion writing. Let's see if it assembles a difference."