Uppsala City Theatre

My book circle has read "Your servant listens" by Sara Lidman, the first novel of 7 that deals with the colonization process of northern Sweden that she wrote between 1977 and 1985.
Yesterday we went to see the musical at Uppsala Stadsteater. A fantastically touching performance about a part of Sweden's history.

Sara Lidman's Jernbanesvit is a masterful piece of Swedish history, about the intrusion of industrialization into Västerbotten and human faith in the future. A musical with courage, about how the Stambanan through upper Norrland got its route.
 "We have to become like the Swedes up here. We needed the railway. The king needed to come and inaugurate and look at us with proud, majestic eyes. Ditching was finished for D. Mårtensson. My life's task was to get the rails drawn through Lillvatnet."
Didrik Mårtensson from Lillvattnet is the son of a small farmer with big visions. The forest must go to Stockholm, the town must be lifted out of poverty! He will tie his beloved region together with the rest of Sweden - the railway is the salvation. But the well-intentioned and charismatic leader doesn't always understand whose business he's actually running...
With Jernbanesviten, Sara Lidman from Missenträsk in Västerbotten became one of Sweden's greatest writers. Lidman was an important political voice in the middle of the 20th century, involved in the apartheid issue, the Vietnam issue and the devastation of primeval forest. The performance Jernbanan is based on the first five books in the suite and the music spans genres such as Swedish and American folk music, jazz and romance.