Roman om ett samhälle Samhällsskildringen i Sjöwall/Wahlöös Roman om ett brott i förhållande till vänsterdiskursen i Sverige 1965-1975

Sammanfattning: This Masters thesis concerns a series of ten police procedural novels, Roman om ett brott, Novel of a crime, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. These books are among the most translated Swedish novels and have been popular among audiences and critics all over the world. The books were produced 1965 1975, a period during which a left wing movement swept over the Western world. Besides from being detective stories Novel of a crime is an analysis of contemporary society, and this thesis will focus on the social and political ideas and the criticism expressed in the books. Theories used in this study are the Sociology of Literature and the Analysis of Ideas. As a background we describe the development of the 1968 movement and we shortly present the history of the literary genre, criminal fiction, and the authors Sjöwall/Wahlöö. With help of the sociological abstraction ideal types our aim has been to analyse and classify the attitudes expressed in the novels towards socio-political matters and see if and how they ideologically coincide with the ideas of the predominant discourse. We also discuss if and how language, literary manners and the fictional creating of the spirit of the time correspond with this discourse.