Tschandala — August Strindberg

Strindberg (1849-1912) is best known internationally as Sweden's greatest dramatist. Less well known outside Sweden is the range of his other writings-novels, short stories, essays, journalism, and poetry. This novella, translated into English here for the first time, was written in the autumn of 1888. Set in the 1690s, in a province of Sweden recently annexed from Denmark, the novella tells the story of Andeas Torner, a Swedish academic who finds himself spending the summer holiday with his family at the manor house of an eccentric gypsy. A conflict arises in which Torner must resort to despicable deeds to renounce the gypsy. Strindberg, in parading his prejudices so nakedly, is simultaneously revealing many of the aspects of his age that would lead to tragic consequences in the century that followed.