Patrik Lundberg (Busan, South Korea, 1983), born Jong Dae Kim and adopted at 9 months, is a Swedish journalist and columnist at Aftonbladet, Scandinavia’s largest daily paper.
The work of Patrik Lundberg asks hard questions about identity and the feeling of never fitting in. Witty, young and exceedingly funny, with a personal and deeply genuine approach, Lundberg has found a voice of his own. A Scandinavian Nick Hornby in the making.
He debuted as an author in 2013 with Yellow on the Outside, an autobiographical story about the search for his birth family and about finding an identity. A story about exclusion and not fitting in anywhere. A life-changing journey, and a search for family roots and a sense of belonging.
Patrik Lundberg’s first YA fiction novel Chameleon was published in 2014 and depicts the journey of a young soccer player and slacker who leaves his small hometown in the Swedish countryside for the city life of Malmö and a life as a journalist. Searching for the courage to leave everything and everyone he knows behind, he begins to understand that forming an identity does not require forgetting your old self, but is about accepting both your background and your new friends and dreams.
Patrik Lundberg is currently working on a book that explains how to write newspaper columns: he also teaches journalism courses. He regularly lectures on themes such as racism, identity and the conflict between country and urban life, and is also known for debating the moral and emotional problems and identity issues that adoptees and their birth families go through.
Author’s photo by Anna Wahlgren