The aim of this thesis is to examine and describe the Swedish diary novel. The examination and description is based on an inventory of diary fiction written and published in Swedish between 1825 and 2010. The novels are discussed from a narratological point-of-view in the first part of the thesis. The second part is a close reading of three novels, Fredrika Bremer’s A Diary (1843), Hjalmar Söderberg’s Doctor Glas (1905), and Eyvind Johnson’s Dreams of roses and fire (1949), written in their entirety or partly in diary form. They all thematizes the mirror effect typical of self-writing.

The diary novel is discussed as a mimetic genre, that is, a type of novel that formally as well as thematically imitates a non-fiction genre. The implied model is, of course, the authentic diary, although the early epistolary novel had an important influence as well. The effect of using a well-established literary form is its ability to raise certain expectations on behalf of the reader. The basic forms of authentic diary-keeping are all associated with truthfulness, and consequently the diary form is above all connected to an allegedly truthful and honest account of reality.

Diary fiction is thematically necessarily associated with the written self, and the fictive diarist is scrutinized from different viewpoints. He or she is commonly said to be, by profession or otherwise, an intellectual, who has writing as work or pastime. The diarist is also typically prone to loneliness and alienation, caused by either an inner predisposition or physical isolation (or both).