Join us on February 5, 2024, 7:00 PM at Elliot Bay Books in Seattle. Author Linnea Axelsson will be joined by Amy Swanson King of Pacific Sami Searvi and Sasha LaPointe from the Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribe. There will be a panel discussion. SFHS is a co-presenter of this event. If you live outside of the Seattle area, see the tour listing below.
In Northern Sámi, the word Ædnan means the land, the earth, and my mother. These are all crucial forces within the lives of the Indigenous families that animate this groundbreaking book: an astonishing verse novel that chronicles a hundred years of change: a book that will one day stand alongside Halldór Laxness’s Independent People and Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter as an essential Scandinavian epic.
The tale begins in the 1910s, as Ristin and her family migrate their herd of reindeer to summer grounds. Along the way, forced to separate due to the newly formed border between Sweden and Norway, Ristin loses one of her sons in the aftermath of an accident, a grief that will ripple across the rest of the book. In the wake of this tragedy, Ristin struggles to manage what’s left of her family and her community.
In the 1970s, Lise, as part of a new generation of Sámi grappling with questions of identity and inheritance, reflects on her traumatic childhood, when she was forced to leave her parents and was placed in a Nomad School to be stripped of the language of her ancestors. Finally, in the 2010s we meet Lise’s daughter, Sandra, an embodiment of Indigenous resilience, an activist fighting for reparations in a highly publicized land rights trial, in a time when the Sámi language is all but lost.
Weaving together the voices of half a dozen characters, from elders to young people unsure of their heritage, Axelsson has created a moving family saga around the consequences of colonial settlement. Ædnan is a powerful reminder of how durable language can be, even when it is borrowed, especially when it has to hold what no longer remains:
“I was the weight
in the stone you brought
back from the coast
to place on
my grave,”
one character says to another from beyond the grave.
“And I flew above
the boat calling
to you all:
There will be rain
there will be rain.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LINNEA AXELSSON is a Sámi-Swedish writer, born in the province of North Bothnia in Sweden. In 2009, she earned a Ph.D, in art history from Umeå University. In 2018, she was awarded the August Prize for this book. She lives in Stockholm, Sweden.
TOUR DATES
BROOKLYN, NY
January 29, 2024, 7:00 PM at Community Bookstore LLC
NEW YORK, NY
January 30, 2024, 6:30 pm McNally Jackson Booksellers
EAST SANDWICH, MA
January 31, 6:00 PM at Titcomb’s Bookshop
BROOKLINE, MA
February 1, 2024, 7:00 PM at Brookline Bookshop
SOUTH HADLEY, MA
February 2, 2024, 7:00 PM at Odyssey Bookshop
WASHINGTON, DC
February 4, 2024, 3:00 PM at Prose and Politics Bookstore
SEATTLE, WA
February 5, 2024, 7:00 PM at Elliot Bay Books
LOS ANGELES, CA
February 6, 2024, 7:00 PM at Skylight Books
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
February 7, 2024, 1:00 PM at The Center for the Art of Translation
NEW YORK, NY
February 13, 6:00 PM at Scandinavia House