Kallocain

Set in the twentieth century of the totalitarian Worldstate after a World War, Swedish author and poet Karin Boye’s bleak dystopian novel, Kallocain (1940), follows chemist Leo Kall, a dutiful worker and loyal citizen who creates a new wonder-drug that makes people speak the unfiltered truth. When Kall awakes one day to read the headline “Thoughts Can Be Judged,” he takes it upon himself to successfully create a truth serum to help the Worldstate control its citizens. Kall names the drug Kallocain after himself. However, when Kall realizes the state is using his truth serum as a way to prosecute a person’s thoughts, he is hesitant to help. Even so, Kall can’t help but administer the drug to his wife to determine if she has been faithful to him or has been having an affair with his boss, Edo Rissen. Kallocain has been called “a fascinating novel of the 1984 and Brave New World genre” by Library Journal. The novel was nominated for the Retro-Hugo Award for the best science fiction novel of 1941. In 1981, the film was adapted to television as a two-part Swedish miniseries.

Narrated in the first person past tense by protagonist Leo Kall, the story begins sometime in the twenty-first century. Kall is in prison serving a long sentence for reasons we don’t yet know.

Following a devastating World War, the totalitarian nation Worldstate has taken over, remaining in a state of constant war with a neighboring nation, Universal State. In Worldstate, individualism is outlawed, privacy is stripped, technological surveillance is universal, and people’s private thoughts are on the verge of being judged and criminally prosecuted. The phrase “innocent until proven guilty” does not exist, only the opposite. Children are taken away at age ten and consigned to the State. Fear and paranoia run rampant. Distrust is at an all-time high. A near forty-year-old scientist Leo Kall, who lives in a small apartment in Chemistry City No. 4 with his wife, Linda, and three children, is deemed a soldier by his superiors, the lowest social rank below police officer and elite. Kall is idealistic, naïve, and a loyal subject of Worldstate who abides by the rules to maintain the status quo. All Kall wants to be is a "good fellow-soldier, a happy, healthy cell in the state organism."



When Kall reads a headline declaring, “Thoughts Can Be Judged,” he finds the perfect opportunity to introduce his new green-colored chemical compound to the world, becoming a key contributor to the state’s war effort. Named Kallocain after himself, the drug works as a de facto truth serum, stripping away the inhibitions of those who consume it, allowing them to blurt out the unfiltered truth. Soon Kall is granted permission to test citizens in the Voluntary Sacrificial Service. However, when Kall’s superiors realize how powerful Kallocain is and how it could enhance interrogation methods, Kall has mixed feelings about his work. When a law passes criminalizing a person’s thoughts, Kallocain becomes the primary mode of accessing people’s minds. Seeing the immorality of such practices, Kall evolves from devoted statesman to doubtful dissenter. Initially believing his drug would be used for good, Kall quickly learns the state intends to use Kallocain for corrupt purposes.

While Kall opposes the State’s intentions, he continues to value Kallocain for his personal use. Suspecting Linda of having an affair with his boss, Edo Rissen, Kall uses the drug to determine if his wife has remained faithful to him, causing a rift between them. When Linda is first injected with Kallocain, she weighs her options between killing Kall and openly confessing to her sordid past. Linda chooses the latter, which frees Kall of his fears, allowing him to rejoice over the thought that the communion of love can triumph over the State. With Kall present, Rissen, eventually, is brought before an examination panel, where he is injected with a dose of Kallocain. Rissen confesses to his crimes and is sentenced to death. Kall never sees Linda or his children again. Kall’s role in the Worldstate comes to a crashing halt when a raiding faction from Universal State captures him. Kall reveals that he has been sent to prison, where after twenty years, he has finally brought himself to record his "memories of a certain eventful time."

In a post-script to the story, it is revealed that the document Kall submitted has been filed away in the Secret Archives of the Universal State, cited as violating the Censorship Department. The dangerous document is to be destroyed, if not concealed from the public for eternity, to prevent such immoralities to flourish in the Worldstate in the future. Kall, who continues doing chemical work for the state, has been subjected to stricter control when using pen and paper. In trying to speak out, Kall is forever silenced.



Kallocain was written during WWII in the summer of 1940, less than one year before Boye’s suicide via sleeping pill overdose. The novel has been translated into more than ten languages since its initial publication. Boye, who separated from her husband, Leif Bjorck, in 1932, began a lesbian relationship with Gunnel Bergstrom. While visiting Berlin in 1932-1933, Boye fell in love with Margot Hanel, with whom she lived until her death in 1941. Boye referred to Hanel as “her wife.” Boye wrote four novels before Kallocain, but was best known in Sweden for her collections of poetry. In 1994, Boye’s Complete Poems in English was translated by David McDuff of Bloodaxe Books.