The Fly Trap

'Every summer there are a number of nights, not many, but a number, when everything is perfect. The light, the warmth, the smells, the mist, the birdsong - the moths. Who can sleep? Who wants to? Most people do, it seems. As for me, I'm on the verge of tears from happiness, and I wander around on the island till dawn and dream and think that summer nights are our most underutilized natural resource.'

A mesmerising web of associations, The Fly Trap begins with Fredrik Sjöberg's own experiences collecting hoverflies on a remote island in Sweden. His curiosity about the inventor of his fly trap leads him to rediscover the extraordinary life of a near-forgotten Naturalist, René Malaise. The tale that Sjöberg unravels - of heroic expeditions to Burma and the wilderness of Kamchatka, of lost loves and unexpected treasures - leads him to reflect on life itself, on the natural world and how we learn to interpret it, on slowness, freedom and the bliss of limitation.