I have mixed feelings about street papers as a solution for homelessness, but I still buy Situation Sthlm more often than not. It goes on the stack with the rest of my magazine subscriptions and then I read them all while I’m traveling, depositing them in seat pockets and airports as I go.
The most recent edition of Situation Sthlm, which I bought right before boarding a train to Norway, included a separate paperback anthology of the Med egna ord section of the magazine from 2015 to 2025—that is to say, writing from the magazine sellers themselves. It’s an interesting collection to have, not least because it offers a more permanent space for writing than a monthly periodical.
Or, it almost does. The book is printed and bound like a proper paperback, all very professionally, but when you look closer you realize there’s no ISBN. Even the free copy of Bara ljuset kan besegra mörkret that I just randomly got in the mail one day has an ISBN, meaning it’s a registered entity in the larger bookseller ecosystem. How is this edition of Hemlös: med egna ord, never mind the previous two paperback anthologies, supposed to survive? No ISBN means you can’t hop on, say, adlibris.se and buy a copy two or three years after publication, if reading this blog post inspires you to buy it. One copy each of the 2008 and 2015 editions are available from the Stockholm public library, but that doesn’t feel like especially robust data security.
Not so permanent after all, perhaps.
The anthology consists of poetry or brief little biographical pieces and daily observations, so it’s not exactly citizen journalism. But it’s citizen literature, if such a concept exists—outsider art—and it would be a shame if it disappeared from the conversation because it wasn’t included in the system.
