In the period between the world wars, many writers from impoverished rural backgrounds attained prominence in Sweden, their rise corresponding roughly to the establishment of a welfare state. Lacking formal academic training, they educated themselves however they could: through lending libraries, at folk high schools, and by writing for the radical press. Several of these writers drew attention to their class origins by creating fictional worlds that portrayed Swedish society, past and present, from the perspective of the disadvantaged. Ivar Lo-Johansson, whose career spanned seven decades, was the most prolific of these epic realists and an active participant in literary and cultural debates. Known familiarly as Ivar Lo, he was both critically acclaimed and popular with readers. His early works depicted oppressive social and economic conditions among agricultural laborers but resonate in equal measure from penetrating psychological insight. In his middle years Lo-Johansson turned to the autobiographical novel...