Languages of Sweden
The Kingdom of Sweden is a nation-state for the Swedish people, and as such, their national language is held in very high regard. Of Sweden's roughly ten million people, almost all speak Swedish as at least a second language, and the majority as a first language (7,825,000, according to SIL's Ethnologue). Swedish is also an official language in Finland where it is spoken by a large number of Swedish-speaking Finns. The language is also spoken to some degree by ethnic Swedes living outside Sweden, for example, just over half a million people of Swedish descent in the United States speak the language, according to Ethnologue.
Swedish literature
The Swedish language is an official language in Finland, with approximately 5.6% of the population having it as their mother tongue. Hence Swedish language literature has a considerable following in Finland, with several well-known Swedish-speaking Finnish writers, such as Bo Carpelan, Christer Kihlman and Tove Jansson. Jansson, perhaps best known for her Moomin books for children, wrote novels and short stories for adults, including "Sommarboken", (1972, "The Summer Book").