Published in 1983, ‘The Christmas Oratorio’ (Swedish: Juloratoriet) is a novel by Swedish author Göran Tunström that won the ‘Nordic Council Literature Prize’ in 1984. Tunström grew up in Sunne (Värmland), a village that became synonymous with life for the writer. Although the sudden death of his father, a minister, penetrated Göran Tunström’s entire body of work, like a black hole around which his entire work revolved, he always maintained the emotional perception of a child. ‘Juloratoriet’ is rooted in a disaster: a herd of cows stampedes and kills a grandmother on her way to church, where she was to sing. The survivors end up leading a life in art as an attitude to life itself: Bach’s Christmas Oratorium, constantly played in the novel, symbolises the art’s "way of life" as a contrast to the suffering, loneliness and privations of human life. Bach has something to offer in the light of death: "Joy! Praise!", as in the opening choir of trumpeting angels. According to the Adjudicating Committee, in his novel “Juloratoriet” Göran Tunström links human destiny to voices, in a choral work, and shapes the possibility of re-creating the world out of chaos. In 1996 the novel was adapted into a film version directed by Kjell-Åke Andersson and starring Peter Haber, Johan Widerberg and Henrik Linnros.
