Scandinavian Literature

Another haunting novel of eco-speculation from Johanna Sinisalo, the award-winning author of Troll and a powerhouse of the Finnish science fiction and fantasy scene. It is claimed Albert Einstein said that if bees disappear from the earth, mankind has four years left. When bee-vanishings of unprecedented scale hit the United States, Orvo, a Finnish beekeeper, knows all too well where it will lead. And when he sees the queen dead in his hives one day, it's clear the epidemic has spread to Europe, and the world is coming to an end. Orvo's special knowledge of bees just may enable him to glimpse a solution to catastrophe: he takes a desperate step onto a path where only he and the bees know the way but it propels him into conflict with his estranged, but much-loved son, a committed animal activist. A magical plunge into the myth of death and immortality, this is a tale of human blindness in the face of devastation—and the inevitable.

The latest volume in the Dedalus European fantasy series, this anthology of short stories includes a wide range of texts covering the period from nineteenth century until today. The richness and diversity of the stories reflects the long tradition of fantasy in Finnish literature, ranging from the classics to experimental literature, from satire to horror. This is the first collection of Finnish short stories of its kind and almost all are translated into English for the first time.

From cities of giant insects to a mysterious woman claiming to be the female Don Quixote, Leena Krohn's fiction has fascinated and intrigued readers for over forty years. Within these covers you will discover a pelican that can talk and a city of gold. You will find yourself exploring a future of intelligence both artificial and biotech, along with a mysterious plant that induces strange visions. Krohn writes eloquently, passionately, about the nature of reality, the nature of Nature, and what it means to be human. One of Finland's most iconic writers, translated into many languages, and winner of the prestigious Finlandia Prize, Krohn has had an incredibly distinguished career. Collected Fiction provides readers with a rich, thick omnibus of the best of her wor—-including novels, novellas, and short stories. Appreciations of Krohn's work are also included.

An amazing, award-winning speculative fiction debut novel by a major new talent, in the vein of Ursula K. Le Guin. Global warming has changed the world's geography and its politics. Wars are waged over water, and China rules Europe, including the Scandinavian Union, which is occupied by the power state of New Qian. In this far north place, seventeen-year-old Noria Kaitio is learning to become a tea master like her father, a position that holds great responsibility and great secrets. Tea masters alone know the location of hidden water sources, including the natural spring that Noria's father tends, which once provided water for her whole village. But secrets do not stay hidden forever, and after her father's death the army starts watching their town—and Noria. And as water becomes even scarcer, Noria must choose between safety and striking out, between knowledge and kinship. Imaginative and engaging, lyrical and poignant, Memory of Water is an indelible novel that portrays a future that is all too possible.

Performance artist Shlomith from New York, chief accountant Polina from Moscow, heart transplant patient Rosa Imaculada from Brazil, upper-crust Nina of Marseilles who is expecting twins, Wlbgis from the Netherlands, who suffers from throat cancer, Senegalese Maimuna, who dreams of a career as a model, and Austrian teenager Ulrike have all ended up in an empty, blank space. Time, as we understand it, has ceased to exist, and all bodily sensations seem to have disappeared. Playing with genres from essay to poetry, Oneiron is an astonishing work that explores the question of what follows death and delves deep into the lives and experiences of seven very different women.

Verrone's third work is even more closely situated in the world of fantasy than the two previous ones, Äl maksa lautturille (Gummerus, 1992) and Yksinäinen vuori (Kirjayhtimä, 1993). The gloomy novel describes a world that is completely different from the one we know. The members of the community are born from clay and already a few months old they are put into different molds, the strongest become Hunters, the weakest Caregivers. The continuous adaptations to the mold that are part of the individual's growth process are extremely painful experiences, but of paramount importance in terms of belonging to the community. However, the main character Ulthyraja—whose gender remains a mystery as the story progresses —does not seem to fit into any mold, but ends up going from village to village, looking for a place to belong. Ulthyraja lives on the fringes of his community, as a bystander and critical observer - like so many of Verrose's future protagonists." (Kirjasampo, translated)

Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy- from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Now he's confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him. Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turnedsingularity lights the night. What Mieli offers is the chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self-in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed. As Jean undertakes a series of capers on behalf of Mieli and her mysterious masters, elsewhere in the Oubliette investigator Isidore Beautrelet is called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, and finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur....The Quantum Thief is a crazy joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people communicating by sharing memories, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as MMORPG guild members. But for all its wonders, it is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge, and jealousy. It is a stunning debut.

Only nine people have ever been chosen by renowned children's author Laura White to join the Rabbit Back Literature Society, an elite group of writers in the small town of Rabbit Back. Now a tenth member has been selected: a young literature teacher named Ella. Soon Ella discovers that the Society is not what it seems. What is its mysterious ritual known as "The Game"? What explains the strange disappearance that occurs at Laura White's winter party? Why are the words inside books starting to rearrange themselves? Was there once another tenth member, before her? Slowly, as Ella explores the Society and its history, disturbing secrets that had been buried for years start to come to light...

Small streams grow into a big stream, and soon the future of all humanity is at stake. Is there enough time to save yourself? Indian marine archaeologist Amrita Desai studies a ruined city found at the bottom of the sea on the west coast of India. What stopped life in cities ten thousand years ago? Desai needs a special submarine for his research, and the Russian Sergei Savelnikov appears as a colleague. At the same time, unexpected things begin to happen on the Greenland ice sheet. Finnish researcher Kari Alanen discovers a factor that connects the ruins of the Gulf of Cambay, the continental glaciers of Greenland and the mysterious boulders of the Bahamas in a surprising way (publisher's description, translated).

Tainaron consists of a series of letters sent beyond the sea from a city of insects. Tainaron is a book of changes. It speaks of metamorphoses that test all of nature from a flea to a star, from stone and grass to a human. The same irresistible force that gives us birth, also kills us. Nominated for the prestigious Finlandia prize, this is the perfect introduction to the work of a modern fabulist (Goodreads).

When an unidentified pregnant woman dies in a car accident, scientists keep her unborn child alive by connecting it to a computer. The unborn child is part of a cybernetic experiment designed to move humanity to a new level of consciousness.

Winner of the Finlandia Award, Troll: A Love Story is an enchanting novel that has become an international sensation. Angel, a young photographer, comes home from a night of carousing to find a group of drunken teenagers in the courtyard of his apartment building, taunting a wounded, helpless young troll. He takes it in, not suspecting the dramatic consequences of this decision. What does one do with a troll in the city? As the troll's presence influences Angel's life in ways he could never have predicted, it becomes clear that the creature is the familiar of man's most forbidden feelings. A novel of sparkling originality, Troll is a wry, beguiling story of nature and man's relationship to wild things, and of the dark power of the wildness in ourselves.

Eliana is a model citizen of the island, a weaver in the prestigious House of Webs. She also harbors a dangerous secret—she can dream, an ability forbidden by the island's elusive council of elders. No one talks about the dreamers, the undesirables ostracized from society. But the web of protection Eliana has woven around herself begins to unravel when a young girl is found lying unconscious in a pool of blood on the stones outside the house. Robbed of speech by her attackers, the only clue to her identity is one word tattooed in invisible ink across her palm: Eliana. Why does this mysterious girl bear her name? What links her to the weaver and could she hold Eliana's fate in her hand? As Eliana finds herself growing closer to this injured girl she is bound to in ways she doesn't understand, the enchanting lies of the island begin to crumble, revealing a deep and ancient corruption. Joining a band of brave rebels determined to expose the island's dark secrets, Eliana becomes a target of ruthless forces determined to destroy her. To save herself and those she loves, she must call on the power within her she thought was her greatest weakness: her dreams.

The year is 1883, and the stark Icelandic landscape is the backdrop for this spellbinding fable that is part mystery, part fairy tale. The fates of a priest, a naturalist, and a young woman with Down syndrome are intrinsically bound and gradually, surprisingly unraveled.

Spanning eras, continents, and genres, CoDex 1962--twenty years in the making—is Sjón's epic three-part masterpiece. Over the course of four dazzling novels translated into dozens of languages, Sjón has earned a global reputation as one of the world's most interesting writers. But what the world has never been able to read is his great trilogy of novels, known collectively as CoDex 1962--now finally complete. Josef Löwe, the narrator, was born in 1962—the same year, the same moment even, as Sjón. Josef's story, however, stretches back decades in the form of Leo Löwe—a Jewish fugitive during World War II who has an affair with a maid in a German inn; together, they form a baby from a piece of clay. If the first volume is a love story, the second is a crime story: Löwe arrives in Iceland with the clay-baby inside a hatbox, only to be embroiled in a murder mystery—but by the end of the volume, his clay son has come to life. And in the final volume, set in present-day Reykjavík, Josef's story becomes science fiction as he crosses paths with the outlandish CEO of a biotech company (based closely on reality) who brings the story of genetics and genesis full circle. But the future, according to Sjón, is not so dark as it seems. In CoDex 1962, Sjón has woven ancient and modern material and folklore and cosmic myths into a singular masterpiece—encompassing genre fiction, theology, expressionist film, comic strips, fortean studies, genetics, and, of course, the rich tradition of Icelandic storytelling.

It’s the beginning of the 22nd century and humanity’s elite has fled the uninhabitable Earth for space. Those left on the war-torn and disaster-ravaged planet seek refuge in the Net, now an immersive, digital reality. Looming over them all is an enormous black cube, big enough to contain all of Shanghai, which appeared in the sky almost 11 years earlier. It falls to Emil, a little-known writer of Icelandic descent, to unravel the mystery of the cube, having been given exclusive access to interview its sole “survivor.” With pressure being applied from all fronts, Emil finds himself plunging head-first into a dizzying, layered reality hiding the answer of what will ultimately become of humanity.

It tells the story of Ingi Vítalín, an Icelandic teacher, who is walking alone in the countryside, reflecting on the stars and whether we will ever reach them, when he encounters a strange man. This man is garishly dressed, and according to a standard trope of Icelandic fiction should be one of the hidden folk, an elf; but he addresses Vítalín in English and announces himself as an Alien. He then takes Vítalín on his ship to his home planet, a veritable Utopia, to teach him about the fallacies of mankind and how to fix them (The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction).

LoveStar, the enigmatic and obsessively driven founder of the LoveStar corporation, has unlocked the key to transmitting data via birdwaves, thus freeing mankind from wires and devices. Cordless modern men and women are paid to howl advertisements at unsuspecting passers-by, REGRET machines eliminate doubt over roads not taken and soulmates are identified and brought together. Indridi and Sigrid, two happy young lovers have their perfect worlds threatened when they are 'calculated apart' and are forced to go to extreme lengths to prove their love.

To weary viking ulfar thormodsson, the town of stenvik is the penultimate stop on the return leg of a long and perilous journey. The small coastal town is home to a colorful array of individuals, from the beautiful and tragic lilia, who captures thormodsson's rough heart, to solitary blacksmith audun arngrimsson, whose past hides many dark secrets. The travel worn vikings also discover that king olav is marching on stenvik from the east, determined to bring the white christ to the masses at the point of his sword even as a host of blood thirsty raiders led by a mysterious woman sails from the north. Meanwhile, there is trouble brewing between two of the town's competing factions, a conflict that threatens to sweep all of them, natives and visitors alike, into the jaws of war. Thormodsson and his companions soon learn that in this conflict between the old gods and the new, there are enemies everywhere outside the walls of stenvik as well as within.

Jens Brørby is 32 years old, a 'service broker' by profession, interested in science fiction and a free man. Through the author Anders Underdal and a friend, he hears about the organization Ungdomsfront Against Narcotics, which achieves phenomenal results with drug addicts. With the help of a two-month camp stay, the Front manages to wean heroin addicts and then turn them into believing communists. The young people seem brainwashed. When his friend Anders disappears under mysterious circumstances, Jens decides to take up the fight. The spurs lead him to Alaska's roadless and lawless wilderness, where the action culminates in a dramatic climax (Goodreads, translated).

In the spirit of Station Eleven and Never Let Me Go, this dazzling and ambitious literary debut follows three generations of beekeepers from the past, present, and future, weaving a spellbinding story of their relationship to the bees—and to their children and one another—against the backdrop of an urgent, global crisis. England, 1852. William is a biologist and seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive—one that will give both him and his children honor and fame. United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper fighting an uphill battle against modern farming, but hopes that his son can be their salvation. China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao's young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident, she sets out on a grueling journey to find out what happened to him. Haunting, illuminating, and deftly written, The History of Bees joins these three very different narratives into one gripping and thought-provoking story that is just as much about the powerful bond between children and parents as it is about our very relationship to nature and humanity (publisher's description, translated).

Tor Åge Bringsværd has written a fabulous story. The action takes place in an unknown world and in a foreign landscape. It is a novel about love and betrayal, forgiveness and blind hatred. About getting lost when everyone says you're on the right path, about respect for all living things and about the great overwhelming once-in-a-lifetime love that some of us are lucky enough—or unlucky—to encounter during our lives. Ammer has a dirty job. He cleans up the mess. Removes what the authorities have decided should be removed. He never questions the importance and necessity of what he does. just accomplishing their missions as quickly and painlessly as possible. He then goes home to Vala. Vala has blue fur and a long tail. Even though they are of different species, Ammer loves Vala and she loves him. He is human and she is olin, they meet some ugly looks, but on the whole the relationship is accepted by those around them. But when the crisis hits, the hatred and distrust against everything that is different takes root. Suddenly humans and olin can no longer live in peaceful coexistence. And Ammer must embark on the most difficult journey of his life for love. Not because it has an answer, but because it has a song is an exciting and beautiful story that won't let go until the last page is read. No one writes about the times we live in in such a precise and thought-provoking way as Tor Åge Bringsværd (publisher's description, translated).

On an ordinary day in Bergen, Norway, in the late 1990s, Anna is reading in the garden while her two-year-old daughter, Laura, plays on her tricycle. Then, in one startling moment, Anna misreads a word, an alternate universe opens up, and Laura disappears. Twenty years or so later, life has gone on as if nothing happened, but in each of the women's lives, something is not quite right. Both Anna and Laura continue to exist, but they are invisible to each other and forgotten in each other's worlds. Both are writers and amateur pianists. They are married; Anna had two more children after Laura disappeared, and Laura is expecting a child of her own. They worry about their families, their jobs, the climate—and whether this reality is all there is.

Knut Faldbakken is one of Norway's leading contemporary writers, and his novels have been published in fourteen countries. Twilight Country is the stark portrayal of a civilization in decline, a civilization with unnerving similarities to our own. When life in the stagnant and polluted city of Sweetwater becomes unbearable, its citizens desert it one by one to take refuge on the Dump, the repository of the city's unwanted surplus. Here they find freedom from the city's. Bureaucratic tyranny and filth as well as the material goods they depend on for survival. Twilight Country depicts the struggles of individuals who learn to cooperate, creating a new society from the detritus of the old.

A surreal debut novel set in a world shaped by language in the tradition of Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin. Vanja, an information assistant, is sent from her home city of Essre to the austere, wintry colony of Amatka with an assignment to collect intelligence for the government. Immediately she feels that something strange is going on: people act oddly in Amatka, and citizens are monitored for signs of subversion. Intending to stay just a short while, Vanja falls in love with her housemate, Nina, and prolongs her visit. But when she stumbles on evidence of a growing threat to the colony, and a cover-up by its administration, she embarks on an investigation that puts her at tremendous risk. In Karin Tidbeck's world, everyone is suspect, no one is safe, and nothing--not even language, nor the very fabric of reality—can be taken for granted. Amatka is a beguiling and wholly original novel about freedom, love, and artistic creation by a captivating new voice.

Aniara is a great space epic and a story of the inner journey of the soul—at once a warning of despair in the age of nuclear weapons and ecological threats, and perhaps the fullest expression of Harry Martinson's lifelong project to show us man's attempt to see himself and his role in creation. Aniara was first published in 1956 and received a great reception. But it is perhaps only today that the verse pose fully emerges as one of the most artistically and intellectually challenging works of our time (Goodreads, translated).

In Arken (1982) myths and modern physics are mixed in a fascinating journey through the universe and history, from creation to destruction (Store norske leksikon, translated).

In the illuminating company of an astrotucker, we meet the ponorists (those who venture into outer space beyond the point of no return), discover the most popular and pungent Earth momentos taken into space and learn the essential difference between humans and androids (Google Books).

What's a hundred thousand years more or less to the universe? To ex-private Bernhard breaking rocks on a prison planet, every day felt like eternity. To the myriads of people, robots, and self thinking servo-mechanisms aboard the twenty thousand mile long spaceship Refanut, it seemed like just another day on their endless trip. But when Bernhard escaped to the Refanut, things changed sharply. For all the machinery on the fabulous starship—pride of a long forgotten galactic empire—had been accidentally programmed to adore Bernhard—and all its people would just as gladly cut his throat (Goodreads).

The year is 2037, and on the island of Isola, seven people have been selected to participate in a competition for a top-secret intelligence position with the totalitarian Union of Friendship. One of them is Anna Francis, a workaholic bureaucrat with a nine-year-old daughter she rarely sees and a secret that haunts her. Anna is not actually a candidate for the position: she's the test itself. Her assignment is to stage her own death and then observe how others react to the news a murderer is among them. It's going to plan until a storm rolls in, the power goes out, and the real game begins.

This classic Swedish novel envisioned a future of drab terror. Seen through the eyes of idealistic scientist Leo Kall, Kallocain's depiction of a totalitarian world state is a montage of what novelist Karin Boye had seen or sensed in 1930s Russia and Germany. Its central idea grew from the rumors of truth drugs that ensured the subservience of every citizen to the state.

Preparations are underway in the Swedish village of Hammarby for the reception of Rudolph Seiler, the young Norwegian architect who is coming to build the new church. But when Alfhild, the provost's daughter, accidentally shatters an antique goblet with a mysterious history, it seems to be an omen of future misfortune.... Seiler arrives and quickly inspires love in two women: Alfhild and Thelma, the fiancée of the insane and deformed Count Albano. But all is not what it seems. Behind his polished and handsome exterior, Seiler is cold and calculating, and it soon becomes clear that he has come to Hammarby for reasons other than to build the church. His real aim is vengeance, and the fulfilment of a generations-old curse. Controversial in the 19th century for its depiction of the callous anti-hero Seiler and its honest treatment of the subject of divorce, The Magic Goblet was nonetheless one of Emilie Flygare-Carlén's most popular works. Once widely read and highly regarded both in her native Sweden and in the English-speaking world, Flygare-Carlén has long since fallen into obscurity. Recently her work has received new attention from scholars in Sweden, and this Valancourt Books edition gives English-speaking readers the opportunity to rediscover this important and fascinating writer.

In the midst of a terrorist attack on a bookstore reading by Göran Loberg, a comic book artist famous for demeaning drawings of the prophet Mohammed, one of the attackers, a young woman, has a sudden premonition that something is wrong, changing the course of history. Two years later, this unnamed woman invites a famous writer to visit her in the criminal psychiatric clinic where she's living. She then shares with him an incredible story—she is a visitor from an alternate future. Despite discrepancies that make the writer highly skeptical, he becomes increasingly fascinated by her amazing tale: in her dystopian future, any so-called "anti-Swedish" citizens are forced into a horrific ghetto called The Rabbit Yard. As events begin to spiral and the author becomes more and more implicated in this woman's tale, he comes to believe the unbelievable: she's telling the truth. A remarkably intense, beautifully wrought tale that combines the ingenuity of speculative fiction with the difficulties of today's harsh political realities, They Will Drown in Their Mothers' Tears is the groundbreaking, award-winning work from the bestselling Swedish-Ugandan author Johannes Anyuru. With echoes of Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, and anti-immigrant hysteria, this largest and most complex novel from an already celebrated poet, author, and spoken word artist catapults him to the front ranks of world writers.

In the Society, men and women past middle age who are single, childless, and without jobs in progressive industries are considered outsiders and are sequestered. They are kept healthy and are expected to gradually donate their organs to the "necessary" ones. But suppose two people who live in the Unit should fall in love?