Study of Human Behavior
Original title: Studie i mänskligt beteende
Author: Lena Andersson
Original publisher: Polaris, 2023
Genre: Fiction 

“The study of man is an art, not a science in the modern sense of the word. Only conscious and thinking subjects can exercise it, and not through data collection, but through self-observation, interpretation, recognition, understanding. Fiction lends itself particularly well to this.”

From the preface to Study in Human Behavior.

In a time when AI robots have reached the next level of sophistication, it is the author’s task to continuously remind us of what makes us human, of what the robots can never become.

Lena Andersson’s new collection of interconnected stories, Study in Human Behavior, depicts contemporary women trying to cope with and in their bodies, who observe one another and are observed by others, who carefully listen to what is not said while trying to understand what is said – people who desire human connection at any cost but who can never quite handle it.

Lena Andersson made her literary debut in 1999. She was awarded the 2013 August Prize for the novel Willful Disregard: A Novel About Love, already considered a modern classic. Her latest novel, The Coryphaei: A Conspiracy Novel, was published in 2022.

“Märta knew everything she needed to know without having kissed Teodor Fridh. She knew his mouth couldn’t taste bad, because if it did she would find the taste delicious.”

From Study in Human Behavior.