Linnea Axelsson

Linnea Axelsson was born in 1980 in the Swedish province of Norrbotten. The Sami-Swedish writer completed a doctorate in art history at Umeå University and made her debut in 2010 with the novel »Tvillingsmycket« (tr: Twin Jewelry). It poetically tells the story of the lives of twins Lucinea and Eskil, whose mother died at birth. This was followed by the epic poem »Ædnan« (2018), for which the author received the Svenska Dagbladet Literature Prize and the most prestigious Swedish literature prize: the August Prize in the fiction category. In the Northern Sami language, the word Ædnan means the land, the earth, and my mother – central concepts for the Sami families the book tells the story of. Beginning in the 1910s, when Ristin and her family migrate with their reindeer herd to the north of Norway and are forced to separate along the way, the narrative spans the 1970s to Lise, who belongs to a new generation of Sami and is grappling with questions of identity and cultural heritage, to the 2010s to Lise’s daughter Sandra, an activist for the rights of the indigenous population. »Axelsson’s novel is a bold and original attempt […] to restore the Sami to their rightful place in history«, wrote the »Guardian«. Most recently, »Magnificat« (2022) was published, a mythical novel about an unnamed protagonist who lives with her family outside Paris. She is given a night in a hotel as a birthday present. When she wakes up in the morning, her first great love is sitting by her bed – a man who died when she was 19. On her way home, the woman remembers her childhood and youth in a northern Swedish village, her marriage and the birth of her children. »›Magnificat‹ is a novel from which you can draw strength. It awakens a feeling of gratitude and seriousness«, according to »Dagens Nyheter«.

Linnea Axelsson lives in Stockholm.

Status: May 2024

Tvillingsmycket
Wahlström Widstrand
Stockholm, 2010

Ædnan
Albert Bonniers Förlag
Stockholm, 2018

Magnificat
Albert Bonniers Förlag
Stockholm, 2022