Published in 1981, ‘Samuels bok‘ (Samuel’s Book) is a novel by Swedish author Sven Delblanc that won the ‘Nordic Council Literature Prize‘ in 1982. Although born in Canada, Sven Delblanc grew up in Sörmland and became an important historian of literature, a lecturer in Uppsala, and an editor of ‘Den Svenska Litteraturen’. As a novelist, he wrote in allegories and pastiche, as well as in a streaming narrative realism: seriousness, if not pessimism, is an all-pervading motif in his work. ‘Samuels bok’ is the first part of a series of novels partly based on the author’s grandfather diary: Samuel is a minister whose American education is not recognised, so he can only work as a temporary substitute in a village in Gotland where a series of events leads to his further degradation. A main theme is the farce of humans fighting for elevated positions in social hierarchies and sometimes, in a humorous light, the fool and the loser appear as the real winners. According to the Adjudicating Committee, in his novel “Samuels bok” Delblanc cautiously draws a man (and his family) rejected out of the past: with love and anger he gives a voice to people struggling for human dignity.