A Guardian Top 5 Best Translated Fiction Book of the Year
Finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature
The award-winning, deeply moving novel-in-verse about the struggle and persistence of two Indigenous Sámi families over a century.
As borders are imposed in northernmost Scandinavia, a reindeer-herding family is ripped apart. A century later, a young Sámi woman leads a bold call for reparations. This majestic verse novel chronicles the fates of two Indigenous families over a hundred years, rescuing from oblivion their stories of loss and resistance.
As one generation succeeds another, their voices interweave and form a spellbinding hymn to lands and traditions lost and reclaimed. Written in sparse, glittering verse that flows like a current, Ædnan is a profound and moving epic of Sámi life.
Winner of the August Prize for Fiction
"Full of sonorous power yet shot through with an undeniable intimacy... Extraordinary" – Washington Post
"Lyrical and ambitious" – Guardian
"Crystalline... The music of this book is old, and it is new, and it is old" – Tommy Orange
