Novel by Mats Strandberg and Sara Bergmark Elfgren
The Circle (Swedish title "Cirkeln") is a Swedish young adult fantasy novel written by Mats Strandberg and Sara Bergmark Elfgren. It is the first part of the "Engelsfors" trilogy. The novel takes place in a fictional rural town in Bergslagen in central Sweden and follows a group of teenage girls with little in common who discover that they are witches chosen to save the world from an otherworldly evil. In addition to the fantasy theme, the novel also uses tropes of horror fiction, psychological realism and the unreliable narrator. The novel has been sold for publication in 21 different languages in addition to Swedish. Random House released the English translation in the UK on June 7, 2012, and in other English-speaking countries during the summer of 2012.
The novel won "Bokbloggarnas litteraturpris" which is awarded by major Swedish book bloggers, as well as "Bokjuryn", where over 30,000 Swedish children and young adults vote for their favourite books, and it was nominated for the August Prize youth award in 2011.
Plot.
The novel follows the six "chosen ones" Minoo, Rebecka, Vanessa, Anna-Karin, Ida, and Linnéa, all of whom are first-year students at the same secondary school. Ida and Linnéa are not featured as point of view characters in the novel for thematic and narrative purposes. The characters soon come off as unreliable narrators as their description of themselves and other characters do not match each other, such as Minoo's comments on Rebecka's beauty and Anna-Karin's on her own weight. The apparent suicide of Linnéa's "brother in all but blood" Elias becomes the start of a series of strange events in the town.
Critical reception.
"Cirkeln" received positive reviews in "Dagens Nyheter", Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå and "Skånska Dagbladet".
Film adaptation.
A film adaptation was to be produced by Filmlance with Levan Akin set to direct and Sara Bergmark Elfgren as scriptwriter. The production was put on hold due to disagreements between the authors and Filmlance. Akin left the project as well. The details remain unrevealed.
In April 2013, Benny Andersson of ABBA announced that he had bought the rights to the film from Filmlance. The film "The Circle" was shot during March - July 2014 by Andersson's production company RMV Film and was released in February 2015.
References.
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