Return to Ithaca

Eyvind Johnson shared the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1974, recognized for a body of work shaped by his remarkable journey from working-class autodidact to one of Sweden's most accomplished novelists. Return to Ithaca reimagines Homer's Odyssey through a modern lens, using the ancient narrative as a framework for exploring the dislocations and moral dilemmas of contemporary life.

Written during the era of the Second World War in Sweden, Return to Ithaca reflects the anxieties of a neutral nation watching Europe consume itself in conflict. Johnson's retelling of the Homeric journey home becomes a meditation on exile, endurance, and the difficulty of returning to a world transformed by war.