Aednan

Praise

*One of LitHub’s most-anticipated books of 2024! And a most-anticipated January book at The New York Times Book Review and in Kirkus Reviews.*

“A remarkable novel…’an epic’…is an ambitious subtitle, but Axelsson earns it. Generations unfold across the book’s often incantatory, alternating first-person sections…[Aednan is] full of sonorous power yet shot through with an undeniable intimacy… [and] it achieves a taut and at times uncanny lyricism in Saskia Vogel’s exquisite translation.” —Kanishk Tharoor, The Washington Post

“Crystalline prose that reads like poetry and myth at once. There are intricate layers of beauty and meaning here in sparse clusters across a vast new landscape as I’ve never read before. The music of this book is old, and it is new, and it is old.”—Tommy Orange, author of Wandering Stars
 
“Lyrical and ambitious… every page offers expanses of white space, reminding the reader that this is a narrative of absence, fracture, silence, erasure. This sparse form mirrors the landscape itself: harsh, thinly populated, often snowbound… Axelsson’s novel is a bold and original attempt to answer that question and to return the Sami to their rightful place in history.”—Alice Jolly, The Guardian
 
“Moves as gracefully as a waterfall… This unique novel beautifully conjures these losses and transitions within the flickering shadows of language.“—Declan O’Driscoll, The Irish Times

“Sámi Swedish writer Axelsson makes her memorable American debut with a verse novel that spans generations of two Sámi families, addressing themes of migration and colonial suffering through short-lined, atmospheric poems… Spanning 100 years, this sensitive, beautiful, quietly rendered epic tells an impactful tale of community and survival.” —Publishers Weekly

 ”Ædnan is so immersive that although it runs more than 400 pages, I read it in two sittings. Vogel’s sublime translation not only gives the work breathing room but demonstrates how plain language can rise to the level of poetry.” —Amanda Holmes Duffy, Washington Review of Books

“Mesmerising. A beautiful, poetic weaving of language, character and place that carried me into the intimate interior of a single family in northern Sweden struggling with its unwanted inheritance of deracination and colonisation. Evocative and heart-breaking.”—Audrey Magee, author of The Colony

“Aednan is a soul-gripping and enthralling journey into what it feels like to be othered in your own land. Through powerful poetic prose, Axelsson offers us a profound invitation into understanding what it means to be deeply intertwined with nature. It takes raw talent to build deeply fleshed out worlds and deep characters with sparse poetry. Reading Adnan was an immerse privilege, one I indulged in with utmost reverence.”—Lola Akinmade Åkerström, international bestselling author of In Every Mirror She’s Black

“An epic poem, much honored in Sweden since its publication in 2018, that charts the fortunes of a Sámi community against opposing nationalisms… A sharp-edged tale in verse of colonial suppression, resistance, and survival.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)