Sara Paborn

Sara Paborn (1972) is a writer from Sölvesborg, Sweden. After a long career as a copywriter working in advertising she made her literary debut in 2009 with the the novel Family Fever.

Paborn has written five critically acclaimed novels to date and her sixth novel, Wild Honey, was published by Albert Bonniers Förlag in April, 2020 to great commercial and critical success. Wild Honey is being published in 12 countries around the world.

Reviews

“This is entertainment with intelligence and bite. […] Paborn is phenomenal at creating scenes that perfectly portray things falling into place. Ebba and Veronica’s stories are in dialogue over the decades: about the love that caught fire but never had the oxygen to burn bright, and the love that flared and quickly burned out. Wild Honey is beautiful, perfectly composed and easy to digest like a luxurious literary truffle.”
Sydsvenskan (SE)

“Good Lord, give me a time machine and send me to Sara Paborn’s 1955! […] The author is able to make her sleepy summer days appear divine. Not even the strange swarm of bees that has moved into the inn and terrorizes the summer guests will scare us off – also in apparently dark moments it is impossible not to cozy up and smile through all of Veronika’s chapters.”
Dagens Nyheter (SE)

“Wild Honey is a perfect title for a thought-provoking feel good novel with a bite, and the humorist Sara Paborn delivers cozy reading for those looking for romance but allergic to cheesiness. Everything begins when the lovable protagonist Ebba – a journalist and crossword-creator plagued by tinnitus – talks her way into an interview with a 80 year-old widow named Veronika on the subject ‘how to make love last a lifetime.’ But was her marriage really all that happy? Who is the mysterious artist who keeps showing up in their conversation? And what really happened that hot summer in the 1950s? Paborn writes beautifully about inter-generational friendship and past meets present in the search for a love that never eroded.”
M-Magasin (SE)

“A well-written page-turner in the Anglo-Saxon tradition that captures something utterly essential to mankind as well as the simultaneously forgiving and cruel passage of time.”
Svenska Dagbladet (SE)

“A masterful storyteller and an entertainment author of the highest order. In Sara Paborn’s stories there is both seriousness, depth, ingenuity and a good splash of humor – and Wild Honey is no exception. Here we see a sharp eye for our contemporary moment but also great warmth in the way in which relationships between people are depicted.”
Borås Tidning (SE)

“Paborn combines warmth and seriousness, but there is also a level of suspense that makes the reader want to turn the page compulsively: what really happened between Veronika and Bo Bix? And will Ebba find the mysterious Bo Bix?”
Kristianstadsbladet (SE)

“Sara Paborn is an ace at writing dialog and the strength of Wild Honey is her ability to, through dialogue, create presence and pain in the past as well as in the present. […] Wild Honey is very cinematic; maybe it’s the dynamic between the past and present that makes it so. Middle age versus old age, infatuation versus love – all fused with dreams and longing. With Wild Honey, Sara Paborn has written a novel – at once sharp and sweet – that offers a sense of recognition, in different ways.”
Norrländska Socialdemokraten (SE)

“Sara Paborn is the best kind of storyteller who masters both earnestness, ingenuity, and warmth. Her latest novel Wild Honey is no exception.”
Blekinge Läns Tidning (SE)

“Sara Paborn writes beautifully about the meandering ways of love, and she writes with great seriousness – but also with a great humor. Indeed, she writes like a veritable relationship expert. Read and cozy up – with a serious risk of tears at the end.”
Femina (SE)

“I am engaged by the inter-generational relationship between these two women, their cautious exchange of emotions, of experiences relating to love and life.”
Göteborgs-Posten (SE)

“The greatest pleasure of reading this book is Paborn’s artful depiction of the traditional inn, sculptures in small towns, a welfare state in a lost time and, not least, love.”
Expressen (SE)

“Sara Paborn’s dramatic sense of humor works well when applied to the wear-and-tear culture of contemporary relationships.”
Aftonbladet (SE)

“This is a wonderful and entertaining love story with nimble depictions of characters, perceptive dialogue, and a real sense of milieu. Who doesn’t yearn for the idyllic 1950’s inn – even if it’s just a fairytale?”
Hela Gotland (SE)

“Wild Honey: Bittersweet about lost love and life’s rare highlights. It is the summer of 1955 at an inn by the sea in Båstad that Veronika meets and loses the great love of her life. More than sixty years later, she is interviewed by the newly divorced relationship coach Ebba, and a warm friendship begins to grow. The lives of two women are woven together in this delightful drama about love and relationships. It is magical!”
Nomination For Book of the Year 2020 (SE)

”[…] All three women carry a secret that has left each of them deeply wounded. But Paborn does not leave her characters in the dark, but gives them and the reader hope. ‘In the desert there were species that survived without food and water for decades but still managed to flourish. It was a question of conserving energy.’ The black silk thread ingeniously ties these three women’s stories together – this is stylish authorial embroidery!”
Femina (SE)