About Magnus Linton

Magnus Linton is a Swedish writer and the author of several praised non-fiction books on politically controversial topics. His latest work – The Hated (2012) – has stimulated a major debate in Sweden for provocatively identifying key factors behind the transformation of the new radical right and it’s recent successes in almost all European parliaments. Through in-depth interviews with the people the right labels as “problems” – Roma people in Hungary, Muslims in the Netherlands and “cultural Marxists” in Norway – Linton takes the reader on a continental and frightening trip to three of all the European countries affected by xenophobic extremism in recent years. It’s a political and geographical triangle journey in an unstable continent shaken by the worst economic crisis in decades, with unpredictable but potentially horrific political outcome.

In 2010 Linton published Cocaína, a project he had been working on since 1989 when he first set foot in Colombia and had a ringside seat at Pablo Escobar's all-out assault on the state. It is, as one reviewer puts it, "a magnificent story with new dimensions" on drug production, drug corruption, drug related misery as well as a book on the failed war on drugs and the future of drug use. Cocaína was nominated to Sweden's most prestigious literary prize, "The August [Strindberg] Award" and is, as Lars Palmgren, Swedens best expert on contemporary Latin America, states in his review, "a brilliant book, based on stories that were not only difficult to write but also dangerous." The English edition of Cocaína is published by Scribe Publications and was released in Australia in May 2013, will be launched in the UK in September and published by Counterpoint/Soft Skull in the US spring 2014. 

Lintons second book Americanos (2005) – also nominated to the "The August Strindberg Award" – describes the emerging social movements and political conflicts popularly known as the new Latin American wave of leftism. Blazing the trail for Swedish press, Sweden’s largest paper, Aftonbladet, called Americanos “a pioneering master piece” and the best Swedish work in the genre since the 1960s. Americanos is a unique piece of documentary journalism, invaluable to anyone trying to understand the Latin America rising from the ashes of the era of failed market liberalism. Most Latin American countries are today headed by social reformists and the interplay between the social movements and the new, strong parties on the left will be increasingly important for this continent which is quickly turning into the new political hotspot, presently balancing between populism and realism.

Linton’s debut The Vegans was published in 2000, attracting enormous attention, and ethically affected Göran Persson, the Swedish Prime Minister at the time, in such a profound way that the head of state turned ”semi vegetarian” after reading the book. In The Vegans Linton basically outlines the arguments and thinking that ten years later was made global in Jonathan Safran Foer’s ”Eating Animals”. Magnus Linton has also published a “best of”-collection gathered in the book Kött på flykt (2007) including controversial essays on urbanism, hedonism, drugs, masculinity and queer activism.

Atlas, Linton's publishing house, is a recognized publisher of quality fiction and non-fiction, including translations of works by Alice Munro, Joan Didion, Philip Gourevitch, Wendy Brown, Saskia Sassen, Iris Marion Young, Donald Sassoon, Anthony Giddens, Amira Hass, Gilles Kepel and Richard Sennett. Between 2000 and 2007, Linton was Editor in Chief of the current affairs magazine Arena. Today, apart from covering Latin America, he writes  on a wide range of political issues for the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter and the magazines Arena, Ordfront, Omvärlden, Res and Vagabond. He is also a regular contributor to  Swedish Radio.

Recent videos with Magnus Linton (all in Swedish):

SVT: On Cocaína
SVT: On The Hated

SVT: On Venezuela after Hugo Chávez

SVT: Interview The Hated

SVT: Seminar Xenophobia and the European Crisis

TV4: After Utöya

TV4: Interview The Hated

TV4: On Sweden's drug policy

ABF: Seminar  The Hated

ABF: Seminar New Fascism 

For any inquiries regarding the acquisition of rights for Magnus Linton’s books please contact Rita G Karlsson, rita@kontextagency.com, at Kontext Agency.