History of Art

Smart, elegant and moving [with] the stylish emotional distance of Normal People

Johanna Hedman was born in Stockholm in 1993. She holds a Master's degree in Peace and Conflict Studies and she has lived and worked in Paris, southern India and New York, where she interned for the Swedish UN delegation. The Trio is her first novel.

A young and brilliant painter disappears overnight, at the zenith of her fame, leaving no trace of herself behind. Is this a prank, a political statement, a cynical career move - or something more sinister? 
 
There are no shortage of bystanders who believe they know the answer. Some of them knew the painter intimately and loved her fiercely - others met her only once and couldn't stand her. Some saw her as a protégé or a muse, others as a rival, a lover, a servant, a prize. All of them have clues to contribute to the mystery. 
 
At the centre of this crowd stand two women. One is the painter's estranged best friend, Alma, now a young mother trapped in the suburbs and haunted by the road not taken. The other woman is Dalia: the most influential gallerist in London, a formidable businesswoman determined to track down the missing talent before her market value collapses. 
 
In History of Art, Johanna Hedman constructs a beguiling and thought-provoking meditation on art and creativity, security and freedom, illusion and reality; on women moving through a world owned by men; on selling out or wising up; on the formative relationships of youth, which look so different through the rear-view mirror, and the compromises which must be made in order to survive them.

Johanna Hedman

Kira Josefsson

A smart, elegant and moving novel, all the more impressive for it being Johanna Hedman's debut... The stylish emotional distance of Normal People

Sharp, vividly imagined and affecting in a way that both intrigues and captivates

Fans of Sally Rooney will adore this excellent novel, which has garnered rave reviews

The Trio is like the love child of Normal People and Brideshead Revisited. A sublime and elegiac meditation on love, intimacy, freedom and jealousy, it elegantly explores the gulf between our interior lives and the personas we perform - and between ourselves and other people. Hedman's writing (and Josefsson's stunning translation) is staggeringly beautiful. Vivid, effortless, and perceptive to a molecular degree

Delicate and beguiling... The Trio spans from Berlin to London to Paris as the [characters] continually renegotiate who they each are to each other, questions of ownership and privilege floating in the background of summers which feel both fleeting and endless

An international success before even being published, The Trio is a novel that stands well above the hype... Elegiac, bittersweet, [with] the golden shimmer of nostalgia, it is a story about big emotions

Mature and confident, delicate and eloquent, a study in intimacy . . . Timeless and universal

Full of verve, nostalgia, longing and the claustrophobic euphoria of being in the world with the people you love, this gorgeous novel whisks you along with it; you have no choice but to gratefully follow

Vigorous and vivid, wistful and engaging. Johanna Hedman should definitely expect to win prizes

An acute, eloquent and bittersweet debut... There may be an August Prize nomination!

An unusual debut, confident and intriguing, [by] a mature and gifted writer. The implicit nostalgia works its magic [in this] story of the time when life first gains colour and shape

The ending leaves a stinging sensation [asking] questions of what really becomes important in hindsight, what we remember and how we remember it, and, not least why we become who we are as a consequence of our choices

Stylishly and elegantly composed

How on earth is it possible that Johanna Hedman is a debutant? It feels as if I've seen the future of Swedish writing

An absolutely fantastic debut novel

Fredrik Backman, author of 'A Man Called Ove'

Hugo has lived in New York for many years, mostly alone, when he receives an unexpected visit from a young woman. She is the daughter of two strangers he once knew very well, in a beautiful city he once called home. The young woman has come to ask him about her parents, about the past. And as Hugo sits across the table from her, still afraid after all these years, the memories rise to the surface, as luminous and intoxicating as ever . . . 
 
From New York to Stockholm, Paris to Berlin and Belsize Park to Brighton Pier, Johanna Hedman traces the restless choreography of a love triangle. Bittersweet and euphoric, The Trio is an instant classic: a novel about the path not taken, the people we might have become and the relationships that haunt us long after they have ended.

Johanna Hedman

Books by Johanna Hedman

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter