Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme that was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners but is now currently being hosted by Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog. This meme is quite easy to follow – just randomly pick a book from your to-be-read list and give the reasons why you want to read it. It is that simple.

This week’s book:

Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson

Blurb from Goodreads

The winner of Sweden’s most prestigious literary award makes her American debut with an epic, multigenerational novel-in-verse about two Sámi families and their quest to stay together across a century of migration, violence, and colonial trauma.

In Northern Sámi, the word Ædnan means the land, the earth, and my mother. These are all crucial forces within the lives of the Indigenous families that animate this groundbreaking an astonishing verse novel that chronicles a hundred years of a book that will one day stand alongside Halldór Laxness’s Independent People and Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter as an essential Scandinavian epic.

The tale begins in the 1910s, as Ristin and her family migrate their herd of reindeer to summer grounds. Along the way, forced to separate due to the newly formed border between Sweden and Norway, Ristin loses one of her sons to a deadly accident, a loss that will ripple across the rest of this book. In the wake of this tragedy, Ristin struggles to manage what’s left of her family and her community.

In the 1970s, Lise, as part of a new generation of Sámi grappling with questions of identity and inheritance, reflects on her traumatic childhood, when she was forced to leave her parents and was placed in a Nomad School to be stripped of the language of her ancestors. Finally, in the 2010s we meet Lise’s daughter, Sandra, an embodiment of Indigenous resilience, an activist fighting for reparations in a highly publicized land rights trial, in a time when the Sámi language is all but lost.

Weaving together the voices of half a dozen characters, from elders to young people unsure of their heritage, Axelsson has created a moving family saga around the consequences of colonial settlement. Ædnan is a powerful reminder of how durable language can be, even when it is borrowed, especially when it has to hold what no longer remains. “I was the weight / in the stone you brought / back from the coast // to place on / my grave,” one character says to another from beyond the grave. “And I flew above / the boat calling / to you // There will be rain / there will be rain.”

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday everyone! I hope that the Lunar New Year weekend invigorated everyone. Again, Gong Xi Fa Cai! As we are about to enter the Year of the Dragon, I hope that everyone will have a great year. I hope everyone will be showered with blessings and victories. As it is the first day of the work week, I hope that the week will go smoothly for everyone. I hope everyone had or will have a great start to the work week. I know, Mondays are our least favorite day of the week, at least most of us. I still hope that weekends are longer. Even though we had a long weekend – last Friday was a holiday in celebration of the Lunar New Year – I still feel a little sluggish. Oh weekend blues. I hope everyone is doing well, in body, mind, and spirit.

Kicking off another blogging week is a fresh Goodreads Monday update. As you may all very well know, Goodreads Monday updates have become an integral part of my blogging week. It sets the tone for the rest of the week. So far, my 2024 reading journey has been productive although I have slowed down over the past few weeks as I have been reading rather thick books. Nevertheless, I am glad I was able to sustain the momentum I gained in the past two years, my two most productive reading years. I hope that I don’t lose this momentum as the year progresses even though I have quite lofty goals this year. But before I get lost in a sea of words, let me return to this post.

This week’s featured book is by another writer whose oeuvre I have yet to explore. While searching for books to include in my 2024 Books I Look Forward to List, I encountered Linnea Axelsson, who I learned is a highly decorated Swedish writer. She is also a Sami-Swedish art scholar and poet as well. However, none of her literary works were translated into English, until now, even though she made her literary debut in 2010. Ædnan will be her first work made available to anglophone readers.

There is a bevy of reasons why I included the book in my burgeoning reading list. For one, the book earned quite the accolade. It earned Axelsson the Svenska Dagbladet Literature Prize, as well as the August Prize for best fiction in 2018. Moreover, the book is an epic novel in verse. This will be an interesting one as I rarely indulge in poetry. Nevertheless, I am willing to give Ædnan and Axelsson a chance. After all, I do like to indulge in a literary adventure every once in a while. The book’s English translation was released in early 2024. I just hope I get to obtain a copy of the book.

How about you fellow reader? How was your Monday? What books have you added to your reading list? Do drop it in the comment box. For now, happy Monday and, as always, happy reading!