E-raamat: Home of the Drowned: The International Prizewinner

FROM THE WINNER OF SWEDENS PRESTIGIOUS AUGUST PRIZE FOR BEST NON-FICTION

The powerful, haunting saga of a family of Sįmi women fighting for their way of life in a changing world, when their summer settlement is flooded without warning

'Heartachingly beautiful' Lisa Ridzén, author of WHEN THE CRANES FLY SOUTH

Every summer, Ingį, her mother Rįvdnį, and her Aunt Įnne travel west to their village on the lake. But the summer Ingį is thirteen, they arrive to find their home and possessions have disappeared under water, the land flooded by a dam built to supply hydropower to a society that has continually stolen from them.

The Home of the Drowned follows these womens fortunes over forty years from 1942 to 1982 as the water their people have lived near for centuries is transformed into a menacing force that threatens all they hold dear. Defying the authorities, Rįvdnį decides to build a house on the lake to replace what was lost, becoming an unlikely activist. Meanwhile, Įnnes health is in decline, and a concerned Ingį merely longs to live like everyone else an impossible wish when the Swedish state is relentlessly drowning her world.

Drawing on her own familys history of forced relocation and violent colonial dispossession, Elin Anna Labbas debut novel brings Sįmi history to the fore. The Home of the Drowned reveals connections between land, water and people that hauntingly reverberate with the question: what is it that makes a home?

Translated by Elizabeth Clark Wessel