Sebastian and the Troll

A little about the story

Sebastian feels separated from the world around him, as though an invisible barrier stands between him and the people who want to reach him. When a troll appears, its strange presence offers a different way to speak about the fears and pain he has been carrying. Their conversation opens a small space in which he does not have to face everything alone. The barrier makes concern from other people difficult to receive, while the troll’s unexpected arrival introduces a voice that does not follow their familiar patterns.

This brief, fable-like story uses fantasy to approach emotional isolation with gentleness and seriousness. Its interest lies less in explaining Sebastian than in giving shape to experiences that ordinary conversation can fail to capture. Backman keeps the focus on companionship and the difficult courage involved in responding to a frightening world. Its fantasy is intimate rather than expansive, using a single unusual friendship to consider the gap between wanting to help someone and understanding how that person feels.

Things You May Not Know About Sebastian and the Troll

• The English version began online. Sebastian and the Troll appeared on Backman’s website in January 2018, giving it a different publication path from his conventional English-language novels.
• A title in two languages. The Swedish title is Sebastian och trollet; the English title keeps the same pairing of the boy and his unusual visitor.
• A short story rather than a novel. The compact form concentrates on one encounter, using the relationship between Sebastian and the troll instead of the large ensemble of the Beartown books.
• Collected alongside two novellas. A Slovak collection groups it with The Deal of a Lifetime and And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer.
• Fantasy gives isolation a shape. Sebastian’s enclosing bubble and the troll’s arrival make emotional distance visible, letting a difficult conversation unfold through images rather than a clinical explanation.