Literature criticism has always been on the cultural pages of daily newspapers, in an academic, literary scientific and literary tradition. This tends to be a rather specialized read, which is addressed to and appreciated by specially interested people - much like the sports pages' trunk chronicles are addressed to the consecrated.
In the mid-1990s, Aftonbladet and its star reporter Ingalill Mosander invented something new: book journalism. A simpler, more direct way of writing books. A journalism that makes a point of expressing itself in a different way than one does on the cultural sites, totally unacademic, close to the reading experience. An evening newspaper invention of the best kind, founded on the realization that the book-reading public is an incredibly much larger group than the group that feels at home in the criticism of the cultural sites and magazines.
- Every Saturday I had a big interview with an author and I think it was five book tips. God what I was working on, says Ingalill Mosander before going on stage.
It was a success, the competitor Expressen copied straight away and soon the call came from SVT's Gokväll.
- They thought I had the right tone, says Mosander with cool complacency.
A difference between trotting chronicles and cultural articles, however, is that hardly anyone is offended by the sport's northern journalism, it is just ignored if you do not belong to the readership. Culture, on the other hand, is a subject of a different kind of charge, since cultural life has a side that faces power: against hierarchy, against the financial princes of the prestige economy, against cultural capital. If you feel outside the trot's conversation you don't care. If you feel outside the conversation of cultural life, it often happens that you feel degraded, diminished, insulted. Culture - however fine and noble and loving it is intended - can be hurtful.
It is against the superiority that Ingalill Mosander made his gentle, funny, disarming revolt. A rebellion against the rulers and potentates of literature. An exemption from reading from the imprisonment of nobility. A way to write and talk about literature without anyone feeling stupid.
This is the liberation movement Mosander has led and it explains why she is so dearly loved by her fans. That is why book journalism plays such a big role - both as a relaxed practice and as a loaded symbol.