Review
Five of the best translated fiction of 2024
An indigenous epic, macabre short stories from Spain, Aztec adventures and more
John Self
Aednan
Linnea Axelsson, translated by Saskia Vogel, Pushkin
This award-winning novel set in northern Sweden (the title means both “the land” and “my mother”) is subtitled “An Epic”, but its form – spare, haiku-like verse – means the pages breathe freely. The impressionistic style is matched by the structure, which shifts back and forward, covering a century from 1913 to 2015 in the lives of two indigenous Sámi families. They face the arrival of Swedish settlers and the destruction of their culture, including the building of a dam on Sámi land. One woman regrets her own failure to resist – “The Swedish / language grew / along my thoughts // The Sámi since long / asleep in the body / of shame // obedience overlaid” – and wonders of her children, “How am I to / explain to them // that the ruin / is in my voice.” The result is indeed epic, but also intimate and powerful.
