And in the Vienna Woods the Trees Remain: The Heartbreaking True Story of a

Winner of the August Prize, an intricate weave of documents, substantive narrative, and emotional commentary that centers on a young Jewish refugee's friendship with the future founder of IKEA.

Otto Ullman, a Jewish boy, was sent from Austria to Sweden right before the outbreak of World War II. There he became best friends with Ingvar Kamprad, who would grow up to become the founder of IKEA. Despite the huge Swedish resistance to Jews, the thirteen-year-old Otto was granted permission to enter Sweden-all in accordance with the Swedish archbishop's secret plan to save Jews on condition that they converted to Christianity. Otto found work as a farmhand at the Kamprad family's farm Elmtaryd in Agunnaryd in the province of Småland. Ingvar and Otto became very close friends. But at the same time, Ingvar Kamprad was actively engaged in Nazi organizations and a great supporter of the fascist Per Engdahl. Otto's parents were trapped in Vienna, and the last letters he received were sent from Theresienstadt.

With thorough research, including personal files initiated by the predecessor to today's Swedish Security Service (SÄPO) and more than 500 letters, Elisabeth Åsbrink illustrates how Swedish society was infused with anti-Semitism and how families are shattered by war and asylum politics.

Elisabeth Åsbrink is a journalist and author from Sweden and previously served as the chairperson of PEN Sweden. Her book, And in the Vienna Woods the Trees Remain, received worldwide attention for revealing new information about IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad's ties to Nazism. It won several awards, including the August Prize for Best Swedish Non-Fiction Book of the Year, the Danish-Swedish Cultural Fund Prize, and Poland's Ryszard Kapuscinski Award for Literary Reportage. Åsbrink made her debut as a playwright with RÄLS, based on the minutes taken at a meeting convened by Hermann Göring in 1938, and has since written four plays.

Saskia Vogel is from Los Angeles and lives in Berlin, where she works as a writer and Swedish-to-English literary translator. Her 2019 debut novel, Permission, has been translated into four languages. She has written on themes of gender, power and the art of translation for publications such as Granta, The White Review, The Offing, and The Paris Review Daily. Her translations include work by Lina Wolff, Katrine Marçal, Karolina Ramqvist, Johannes Anyuru and the modernist eroticist Rut Hillarp.