Engagement by Gun-Britt Sundström

Engagement by Gun-Britt Sundström

A feminist cult classic about love, independence and what it means to be an individual, translated into English for the first time

‘I want to have him, I really do. I just don’t want him to have me.’

Martina and Gustav, students in 1970s Stockholm, meet and fall immediately into coupledom. But what is coupledom? A route to marriage? A declaration of co-dependency? A new dimension of commitment and responsibility? A sexual confrontation? Or is it a habit that an intelligent person must consider breaking? Martina and Gustav discuss their relationship endlessly, between themselves and with others, as they try to make it work.

Engagement, set during a time of social change and political upheaval, sees Martina trying to engage with the world on her own terms. Unwilling to marry, she finds herself in a state of permanent engagement while her friends settle down to marriage and children; uncertain of the world’s future, she engages with demos, sit-ins and philosophy seminars in her quest for a new blueprint for joy. First published in 1976, when it was heralded as an instant classic, Engagement remains as relevant, hilarious and heartbreaking today.

Gun-Britt Sundström (Author)
Gun-Britt Sundström (b.1945) works as an author, critic and translator. She is the author of sixteen books, including Engagement (1976). Since the 1990s, Gun-Britt Sundström has established herself as one of Sweden’s foremost translators of children’s books and fiction. She received the Helga Prize in 2019 for her ‘linguistic sensitivity, self-distance, black humour and acuity'.

Kathy Saranpa (Translator)
Kathy Saranpa (b.1955) is a literary translator living in Germany. Her first book-length translation was Ingrid and Joachim Wall’s A Silenced Voice (2020). She serves on the Committee of the Translators Association of the Society of Authors and on the advisory board of Books from Sweden.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780241688137
ISBN 10	0241688132
Title	Engagement
Author	Gun-Britt Sundström
Series	Penguin Modern Classics
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Classics
Year published	2026-06-04
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.