The Kamprad-Lovecraft correspondences are
a series of letters exchanged between Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA,
and H.P. Lovecraft, the master of 20th century Weird Fiction. The
letters and a copy of Weird Tales were discovered in 2008 on the
farm where Kamprad grew up and date from the summer of 1936.
Unearthed during construction work, the
secreted horde was buried in a shallow grave at the foot of a rowan tree
removed to make way for a prefabricated sauna. The letters fell into
the hands of one of the farm's residents, Sven Källström, and onto his blog. While they generated some interest among die-hard Swedish
Lovecraft fans, they have remained relatively obscure.
From their content, you can see
the impact the exchange had on both Kamprad and Lovecraft and I have used the
letters as a starting point for a project at CPG in Southwark Park. I am humbled to have received a written response to the letters from eminent Marxist political theorist Fredric Jameson, together with a contextualising introduction, both of which are accessible here.
