White bullet, blood moon and dangerous proximity to the Kremlin
An environmental dystopia, a novel about the end of the world, a political thriller and two detective stories – read about the latest in Scandinavian literature in Elena Dorofeeva’s article.
All of us have been watching since February 24, 2022 before the discovery of the coming barbarism, crimes and lies. In this exceptional situation, it is important to preserve at least the remnants of culture and support the values of humanism, including for the sake of the future of Russia. Therefore, the editors of Gorky discover about books, recalling meetings, that in the world there remains a place for thought and fiction.
Maya Lunde. Drømmen om et tre. Ashehug, 2022
Norwegian writer Maya Lunde She writes books for both children and adults. Her favorite genre is environmental dystopia. The “Climate Quartet” conceived by the author is nearing a successful conclusion: in early September, the Aschehoug publishing house publishes the last book – a series “Dream of the Village”.
It all started in 2015 with The Story of Bees (Russian translation by A. Naumova, 2018), a subtle and very Scandinavian novel that combines the features of a family saga and dystopia and tells about the future of humanity without bees. The book was translated into 30 languages and entered the long list of the Yasnaya Polyana Prize. A few years later, the second novel “Sineva” (Russian translation by A. Naumova, 2022) was published, which tells about the life of people without fresh water, and the third – “Przewalski’s Horse”, where some animal species disappear.
The main theme of the new book is whether a person can survive in a world without plants. Maya Lunde continues to follow her compositional purpose: the totality is built from several phenomena occurring in different periods of time, in each of which one could become an independent work. The main storyline of the expansion takes place in the year 2110 in the remote northern village of Longyearbyen on Svalbard. Deep in the mountains is a repository of seeds from all corners of the world. Several people who survived after environmental disasters settled here – the boy Tommy, his brothers and grandmother. To survive in this place near the North Pole, to survive, but they have learned a lot, have extensive contact with other countries and live in harmony with nature.
Parallel distribution storyline with the Chinese Tao from the future, whom the reader has already met in The Story of the Bees. In 2098, she lost her three-year-old son. Twelve years have passed since then, but the pain has not gone anywhere, Tao was worried about the memories of little Wei-Ven. She is starving, like the rest of her fellow tribesmen, because many plant species are disappearing forever. But everything changes on the day when Tao is assigned to lead an expedition north to get to Spitsbergen and find the seed vault.
As it seems, they can affect everyone, and they need to be penetrated seriously. But the mastery of the author in composing phenomena, bright, original and self-sufficient, unexpectedly intertwined with each other, cannot remain indifferent. The world of Lunde’s novels is much wider and has deep ecological problems, at the heart of this world is family history, the theme of continuity and disclosure of generations, the fragility and vulnerability of nature and human relations.
Yo Nesbo. Blodman. Ashehug, 2022
On August 30, the American publishing house Aschehoug publishes a new novel Yu Nesbø “Blood Moon” The 13th book in the Harry Hole crime novel series. The previous book, The Knife, was published in 2018 (Russian translation by E. Lavrinaitis, 2019) and did not leave a clear answer to the question of whether it was waiting for the continuation. It was one of the most tragic series of books in which several years of the lives of people very close to him were lost, including the love of his life, and everything seemed to go downhill. Perhaps Nesbo is just a little tired of his hero. Over the past four years, he has published the novel The Kingdom (Russian translation by A. Naumova, D. Gogoleva, 2020) and a collection of short stories Jealousy and Rat Island (Russian translation by A. Naumova, D. Gogoleva, 2021).
What awaits readers in the new book? In a recent interview with the unexpected Verdens Gang, Yoo Nesbø noted that in the new book we meet a broken man who can pick up the pieces of his life. Harry Hole leaves for Los Angeles. He wants to drink himself to death after his whole life has collapsed, quit his job for a while and lie low. That it is practically impossible, but not for long. Nesbø will surprise readers with unexpected plot twists and interesting plots, including the elderly actress Lucille, who owes a million dollars to the drug cartel, a real estate dealer, a childhood friend of a cocaine-dealing detective, a corrupt police officer. The blood moon rises again over Oslo. Found groups of two girls bring Harry Hole back to Norway urgently.
We would like to expect that another classic of the Scandinavian thriller will delight fans of the genre with a dynamic, famously twisted plot filled with psychologism and a gloomy noir atmosphere. Unfortunately, this book is not expected in our market in the foreseeable future: Nesbø has already announced that the rights to three of his new books will not be sold in Russia.
Jonas Jonasson. Profeten is very idiotic. Polaris, 2022
Jonas Jonasson is a familiar name in a modern Swedish book. His works always surprise readers with incredible plots, charismatic characters, sparkling humor. Yunasson’s first book, A Hundred Years and a Suitcase of Money to boot, translated by E. Chevkina, 2011) was published in 2009, when the author was 48 years old, and was a great success both in Sweden and abroad. In 2013, the novel The Illiterate Who Is Considered Mastery (The Illiterate Who Saved Britain and the Kingdom to boot, translated by E. Chevkina, 2021) was published, which also became a world bestseller. Next come the novels Anders the Killer and His Friends (and Several Enemies) (2015), the sequel to The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Thought He Thinks Too Much (2018).
New romance “The Prophet and the Idiot” ascent in June 2022. The reader will once again have an unbanal story with a fascinating plot. The action is valid in August 2011. Petra, a self-taught astrophysicist, calculated that in a few weeks, on September 21, at 21:20, the nature of the Earth is finally destroyed. Becoming a prophetess of the end of the world, she goes on a trip to Europe in a motor home. Her discovery companions are the dim-witted but skillful cook Johan and the pensioner Agnes, who is keen on searching for a job on the Internet. This strange company is in a hurry to Rome in order to have time to tell brother Juhana about the impending disaster. But things don’t go as planned.
Jonas Jonasson uses his favorite literary devices: an absolutely fantastic accident of an unexpected connection with real events and historical figures, the most ordinary person, a layman, may be faced with the need to solve the world’s test. In the preface, entitled “2011”, the author of the publication of a list of events of the year: “Arab Spring”, a terrible earthquake in Japan, the capture and elimination of Osama bin Laden. “It won’t be long before the whole world will be implemented in the game, including Barack Obama, Ban Ki-moon and Putin’s Russia.” According to the statement, in the world “reality gradually becomes his fiction.”
Yunasson writes funny fairy tales for adults, showing disdain for observing any kind of genre boundaries and canons. His books are an explosive mixture of detective, family saga, romance and comedy.
Lars Kepler. Spindle Albert Bonniers Voerlag, 2022
Lars Kepler – the literary pseudonym of the Swedish married couple Alexander Andoril and Alexandra Coelho Andoril, invented by them for a series of novels about the charming detective Jon Linna. By the time their first novel was released, both spouses were accomplished parents, published from several books. But the novel The Hypnotist, published in 2009 (Russian translation by E. Teplyashina, 2010), became a real sensation. He laid the foundation for a series of detective stories translated into 40 languages, the world circulation of which is 15 million copies. Time magazine named The Hypnotist one of the ten most important books of 2010, and the Wall Street Journal included the novel in its list of the top ten detective stories of the year.
In October 2022, Lars Kepler’s ninth book about the detective Jon Linn will be published by the nearest Swedish publishing house Albert Bonniers Förlag – “Spider”. In this book, the serial killer is a danger to the detective himself. The Commissioner of Criminal Prosecution of the Finnish prosecutor Jon Linna is a calm and reasonable person, with the appearance of a movie character and a penchant for melancholy. His partner Saga Bauer receives a letter about a gun with a White Bullet, one of which is prepared for Lynna. After French time, packages with a semi-decomposed body and a milky-white cartridge case, privileged to the tree, were found at the scene. Analysis detectives unravel the intricate mysteries of a homicidal maniac in order to prevent new victims and not fall into a web from which there is no way out.
Kim Lane. Caroline Kerlihead. Gildendal, 2022
Kim Leine – a famous Danish writer with an unusual biography. He was born in Norway, in Copenhagen, only at the age of 16, and subsequently lived in Greenland for another fifteen years, which was reflected in his work. Leine has published seven novels and a book for children. For his autobiographical prose Prophets of the Fjord of Eternity (2012), he was awarded the literary collection of the Northern Council. Leine’s works have practically not been translated into Russian, with the rare exception of chapters from the novel “Tunu” (2009), published in the anthology of modern Danish prose “The Dark Side of Hygge” (compiled and translated by E. Fetisov, 2021).
In June 2022, Gyldendal published a new novel by Kim Leine “Love Carolina” – author in the genre of thriller meeting and the first part of the trilogy. The second book, The Carolina Struggle, will probably come out in a year, the third, The Carolina War, in about two years.
The first book takes place in Moscow in 2013. Young diplomat Caroline Blicher is temporarily at the Danish embassy. In the next elections, she predicts the Democratic Alliance, the highest on the list of the right-wing party, which demands her father. She falls in love with Russian military Mikhail Petrov, access to circles close to the Kremlin. He says he can help Caroline on her way to the top of Danish politics. A year later, in Copenhagen, her ex-military, controversial journalist Jesper Skov, is on the trail of a dark story connected to the secret of the powerful Blicher family. This story may bring fame and glory, but exposure will destroy Carolina’s. Jesper is forced to ask himself what he can sacrifice for the sake of truth.
Carolina Loves is a gripping novel about destructive truth and seductive love, love and power, and dangerous ties to a Europe on the brink of war. “I came up with the idea for the story three or four years ago,” Kim Leine said in a recent interview. “Today I was forced to be born that the political resilience that I write about in this novel has become hyper-relevant. It is discovered that I have not met with what transcends reality fiction about what I have written.” Author of a series that has become interested in “great, tragic, mysterious” Russia and its literature since she read Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” at the age of 15.