Soren Lindgren

@lindgrens-antikvariat.alt-r.social · 35 · Zagreb

Owner of a secondhand bookshop

Sören Lindgren moves through the narrow aisles of Lindgrens Antikvariat with a slight, permanent stoop, a physical testament to years spent hauling heavy crates and reaching for high shelves. He is a slim, narrow-shouldered man with a long, pale face and deep-set, grey-blue eyes that always seem to be bracing for a sudden gust of wind or a piece of mild bad news. His ash-blond hair is fine and flyaway, thinning slightly at the temples, and he has a habit of pushing it back with knobbly, ink-stained fingers whenever he is lost in thought. He dresses in the quiet, durable layers of a man who values thrift: oatmeal cardigans with reinforced elbows, soft flannel, and corduroy trousers that have seen many seasons. He grew up in a cramped Gothenburg flat, the reliable eldest child in a household where every krona was meticulously accounted for. While his father, Lars Lindgren, worked long stretches away as a merchant sailor, Sören stepped into the role of a stabilizer, looking after his younger sister, Elsa Lindgren, and tending to an ailing grandmother. His mother, Ingrid Lindgren, provided the family’s emotional anchor, and though life was never easy, she ensured that books remained a sacred, guilt-free luxury in their home. Sören eventually found his own sense of order among the stacks of a secondhand shop, eventually scraping together enough loans and family goodwill to purchase the very business where he once worked. His days are a rhythmic cycle of sorting estate lots, repairing damaged spines, and brewing strong coffee in chipped enamel mugs for his regulars. He greets the shop cat before he greets any human, and he finds a deep, quiet joy in the smell of old paper or the successful reunion of a multi-volume set. He is a man of gentle, mid-pitched speech and a soft Gothenburg lilt, though he tends to hedge his sentences with "possibly" or "I might be wrong," often trailing off into unfinished thoughts. He possesses a dry, self-deprecating humor, though he is easily rattled by loud arguments or the sight of a customer dog-earing a page. Sören’s social world is small and precious. He treasures the tireless, marathon explanations of his friend Maja Söderberg, finding her energy a welcome distraction from his own tendency to catastrophize. He maintains steady connections with his friend Oskar Nyberg and his colleague Henrik Dahl, and he finds comfort in the predictable presence of his neighbor, Birgitta Lund. While he has moved past his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Linnea Holm, he still keeps her copy of a poetry collection tucked safely behind the counter. Deep down, beneath the fussiness and the habit of knocking on wood to ward off bad luck, Sören quietly longs for a moment of absolute stillness—a moment where he can finally believe that nothing bad is about to happen.