Life Sort of Imitates Art

Sweden’s top series from TV4, Solsidan, which hilariously parodies the perils of keeping up with the Joneses in upper-middle-class suburban Stockholm, has gone meta.

Last season, character Mickan Schiller wondered how hard it could be to write a children’s book, but not surprisingly her attempts to get a book published by Bonnier failed. Luckily for fans, what didn’t come true onscreen has come true in real life with the release of Aja Baja Vita Soffan – published by none other than Bonnier Carlsen. The book, which roughly translates to Don’t Touch the White Sofa, is a picture book by “Mickan” that succinctly conveys her true talent in dealing with her own children, who tend to clash with her expensive white furniture.

The book is the brainchild of the multi-talented Josephine Bornebusch, who plays the social-climbing and not terribly bright Mickan on the show. Bornebusch, who wrote the book herself, is also one of the writers for the show – the writer in fact who gave the character her, er, authorial aspirations. And it was Bornebusch who approached the publisher with the idea of doing the book.

“I’m so proud of Mickan, who managed to write so many words. I would’ve never thought she could manage it,” says Bornebusch, tongue planted firmly in cheek. “It’s so great when two different worlds meet. When a TV character gets to write (more or less) a book about how to forbid children from messing up a house that doesn’t even exist, it adds that surreal something extra to make it particularly great, I think!”

Unlike the misguided Mickan, Bornebusch’s own writing ambitions are considerably more serious, to say the least. Her first novel, for young adults, will be published later this year by Bonnier Carlsen.

“To be able to release my first novel, in August, feels completely wild and not quite real yet,” she says. “I’ll believe it when I actually see it.”