Novelist

Sven Axelrad takes pride in being a street-writer. His university degree is in commerce, but Sven is proof that you don’t need a master’s in creative writing, a famous mentor or a pedigree of any kind if you read often, widely and well. Son of a translator and a teacher, Sven grew up in love with words. His first creative pursuit was music. Sven played guitar in multiple bands, and performed as a singer-songwriter, with his focus always on the lyrics of his songs. Even now, music underpins each of his novels with structure and cadence. Sven’s first writing professors were the novels of the Latin-American magical realists, the likes of Bolaño, Marquez, Vargas Llosa and Allende. Later he would read Zambra, Murakami, Enriquez, Saramago, Saunders, de Bernières and a thousand others. Each book contained important lessons, even the bad ones. These lessons culminated in an outpouring of novels, the first of which is being released by Penguin Random House in 2023. His debut, Buried Treasure (PRH 2023) was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Award / longlisted for both the HSS and SALA awards. His Follow up novel, God’s Pocket (PRH 2024) has so far been shortlisted for the Book Lounge Book of the Year. A much anticipated third novel, The Nicotine Gospel is due out in 2025. Sven has had a short story longlisted for the Desperate Literature Prize in Madrid and will have another published in New Contrast Magazine in 2025.

Photograph by Misha Lee Tame