#Linnea Axelsson

[aaknopf]

A multi-generational saga courses across the pages of Ædnan, by Sámi-Swedish author Linnea Axelsson, translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel. The verse epic follows an Indigenous Sámi family who have herded reindeer for generations, as the forces of colonialism and modern development of their ancestral lands threaten their culture and livelihood. The story is told by a small chorus of characters from the 1910s through the current day, and we become especially close to Lise, who left her Sámi family, following her brother Jon-Henrik, to be educated at a residential school for “Nomad” children. This excerpt from Chapter XII takes place in the early 1970s, along the Great Lule River Valley, where the state-owned Vattenfall company was developing hydroelectric resources, and Lise is graduating into a world unimaginable to her parents.

. .

The river climbed silently up the hills

as soon as Vattenfall whistled it came creeping:

–

Streamed backwards up its deep channel and drowned the earth

When the great Suorva Dam for the third time was to be regulated

–

Entreaty

shone from Mama’s eyes

–

She explained clearly to the Swedes 

that the fishing will suffer if the water rises

–

There was probably no one who understood what she was saying

– –

After the social studies lesson I went with the others to sit on the gymnasium floor

–

Almost all of Malmberget’s students had been dismissed from class

– To participate in the miners’ strike meeting

 –

Someone had heard that Olof Palme was coming

that he would travel all the way up here 

–

To the mining company’s and Vattenfall’s world the one that he himself had helped build

–

It is what he is guarding

It is all that he can see

–

The mine boss’s voice

flowed wildly above the crowded hall which was hot with bodies

–

His voice was so robust his conviction so intense

–

I glanced at Anne who was sitting beside me leaning against the wall bars

and she smiled back at me

–

Soon we would be leaving school too 

–

And could start working join the union

–

You took the job you wanted that’s all there was to it 

– 

Switchboard cleaner or cook

with the old folks at the Pioneer or the children in day care

– –

I spend the weekend up at Mama and Papa’s 

–

I stand with Jon-Henrik

 –

Watching the river flow murky across the slope

–

That brushy slope

where he and I used to go it’s underwater now

 –

How are our tracks ever to be heard Among the Swedes’ roads and power stations

–

It’s Jon-Henrik who says this he had also been drawn down to the dam

–

To work for Vattenfall as soon as school was done

 –

I’m surprised when he says

That he’d preferred to have taken up with the reindeer

–

Been elected into the Sámi community

And learned to guide that wandering gray soft ocean across the world of the fells

–

Just as the lot of us were once taught at the Nomad School that this is what the Sámi do

that this is how we all live

–

He laughs and says:

–

Who knows what the spring flood will bring with it

this drowned  earth may yet be fertile

More on this book and author:

Learn more about Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson.

Check out The Rumpus for a conversation between Linnea Axelsson and Susan Devan Harness about Axelsson's Sámi heritage and the decision to write Ædnan in verse. 

Click here to read Linnea Axelsson's op-ed piece for LitHub on Scandinavia’s hidden history of Indigenous oppression.

Visit our Tumblr to peruse poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series.

To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.

#AxelssonAudio #poetry #poem-a-day #knopf poetry #national poetry month #knopfpoetry #poem #Aednan #Linnea Axelsson

[underthepile]

How am I to

tell stories about life

…………………………

How am I to

explain to them

that the ruin

is in my voice

—Linnea Axelsson, Ædnan

#linnea axelsson #Ædnan #aednan #translation

[kammartinez]

#books #writing #language #translation #aednan #linnea axelsson

[kamreadsandrecs]

#books #writing #language #translation #saskia vogel #aednan #linnea axelsson

[mira-wooster]

#i saw this book in another country #book cover #books #linnea axelsson

[paulsemel]

For many people, "epic poem" means epic story told in verse; think "The Odyssey." But Linnea Axelsson's epic poem "Ædnan: An Epic" is a real world story with political and social ramifications, as I learned when we did this exclusive interview. https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-aednan-an-epic-author-linnea-axelsson/ 📖🇸🇪

#LinneaAxelsson #LinneaAxelssonInterview #LinneaAxelssonÆdnanAnEpic #LinneaAxelssonÆdnanAnEpicInterview #LinneaAxelssonÆdnan #LinneaAxelssonÆdnanInterview #LinneaAxelssonAednanAnEpic #LinneaAxelssonAednanAnEpicInterview #LinneaAxelssonAednan #LinneaAxelssonAednanInterview #Books #Reading #AuthorInterview #AuthorInterviews #Poems #Poetry #EpicPoetry #EpicPoems

[hiphuman2020]

Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson: “Crystalline prose that reads like poetry and myth at once.”

Beautiful, unique and tragic, I've never read a story quite like Ædnan and I cannot stop thinking about it.

Ædnan is a lyrical story of the Sámi people. It’s told by five generations of the same family covering a hundred years of their tragic history, their losing struggle to continue their nomadic lifestyle. In Northern Sámi, the word Ædnan means the land, the earth, and my mother. Axelsson’s family epic begins in the early spring of 1913 with Ber-Joná expressing his love for their rangeland that runs…

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#Indigenous History #Lapp Administration #Lyrical Verse #Sámi Peoples #Sweden

[womenintranslation]

#linnea axelsson #saskia vogel #words without borders #womenintranslation #Ædnan #swedish literature

[beginwhereyoustand]

any poetry recommendations?

Aednan by Linnea Axelsson. A saami, indigenous family epos that made me cry in that way you cry when an infected wound of history is being rightfully torn open.

#bookrecs #tumblarian #saami

[joesterwiththetoaster]

Sámi Theatre in Sweden

Sweden’s main Sami theatre is the Giron Sámi Teáhter, based in Kiruna. The roots of the company were in a group called Dálvadis, a free touring company that performed in Sami around Scandinavia, Europe, and Canada. It morphed into the Sami Teáhter in 1992, and gained its current name in 2009. The goal, which is an overlapping theme between many indigenous theatre companies around the world, “is to carry out professional performing arts based on the Sami culture and identity and to promote the Sámi languages by raising current issues.” The majority of the plays are written or devised by Sami playwrights and directors, geared toward Sami people but performed in both Sami and Swedish. They do shows geared at every age group and host seminars bridging the gap between science and the performing arts (as, like I said before, the Sami are a very environmentally-conscious people group).

Their two most recent (intended, although COVID-19 has hindered their going on) productions display the diverse ways they go about promoting Sami culture perfectly. One is Ædnan, a play based on the prize-winning 2018 novel of the same name by Linnea Axelsson. With six actors, the play focuses on three generations of Sami women in Sweden from the early twentieth century through the present day. It details their resilience in the face of forced assimilation and removal from their lands, the loss of their native language, and the question of what exactly qualifies as “Swedishness.” On the other hand, there’s Language Circus, which is a show aimed at making learning Sami fun for children. Guided by a clown, an actor, and a Sami linguist, children engage in fun activities like clowning and acrobatics as a way to make learning the language fun. After all, as the show description says, “Being a beginner gets easier if learning means being funny and crazy.” While there is a certain sadness to it (like asking how the body can be used to convey grief at losing one’s language), it is mostly intended to make Sami culture and language fun, approachable, and easy to engage with.

Besides the Giron Sámi Teáhter, there is also an annual tradition in Jukkasjarvi (725 miles north of Stockholm, Sweden’s capital city) to build an ice replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre - fittingly enough, called the Ice Globe. They’ve famously performed Shakespeare plays like Macbeth and Hamlet in Sami, albeit shortened and in modern dress. Why shortened? As the Ice Globe’s manager Rolf Degerlund put it, “At minus 38, it is impossible to stand outside for four hours.” (There is, in fact, a filmed version of Macbeth in Sami, but tragically I haven’t been able to find it.)

Watch a trailer for Ædnan below:

http://mediabank.riksteatern.se/blog/tag/aednan

#sweden #sami #sami theatre #giron sami teahter #indigenous theatre #indigenous culture #aednan #jukkasjärvi #kiruna #arcticlife

[arkiven]

Att läsa Aednan ovan polcirkeln - tankar kring Aednan av Linnea Axelsson

Under det hellige berg av Tomas Colbengtson

Jag tvingas läsa Aednan på nära håll. Jag känner igen dammen och Porjus/Bårjås, återskapar platserna i minnet, och ännu mer känner jag igen människorna, tankarna. Ibland stannar jag upp och undrar hur den här boken vet så mycket om mig, om min familj, om oss. Likheten i så många av våra öden slår mig, hur där alltid finns samma fasta punkter att orientera sig från: markerna, språket och den skam och längtan det kopplats till, identiteten och att förlora den och hitta den, rasbiologin, ilskan och aktivismen. Gruvorna, dammarna och kraftverken som stora sår i kartans marker, i det samiska medvetandet. Vattenkraft. Girjasmålet. Vi har liksom alla fått samma kartor att läsa världen med. Jag läser Aednan resandes, på väg bort från lulesamisk mark, på väg hem och hemifrån samtidigt. Jag blir annorlunda där uppe, säkrare, stadigare. I Stockholm är det svårare, jag känner hur jag vinglar när jag vill skriva om ett ”vi”. Nu gör jag det ändå.

”Det var i ett klassrum

i Malmberget

-

Jag hörde läraren

än en gång berätta

om folkhemmet

och Sveriges

berömda solidaritet

-

Medan mamma

och pappa fick

klättra i backarna

Försöka gissa hur

högt upp älven

skulle stiga

innan de började

riva huset”

- Ur Aednan, Linnea Axelsson

Aednan, det äldre nordsamiska ordet för marken som i mitt rättstavningsprogram följs åt av ett argt rött streck, är namnet på Linnea Axelssons nya diktepos, två släktsagor som sträcker sig över hundra år, från tvångsförflyttningen av Karesuandosamer till Girjas samebys stämning av svenska staten. Ordet ”diktepos” för lätt med sig förväntningar om tyngd, något ogenomträngligt som bäst överlåtes till professorer i antika språk, men Aednan är välkomnande och rytmen går fint att komma in i.

Silverfjället av Tomas Colbengtson

Det finns en väldigt drömsk kvalitet i Aednan som är tydlig i bokens början, någonting uråldrigt och samtidigt så nära, men även i nutidsdelarnas vardagliga gång ekar spåren av det, som ett till hälften bortträngt minne som nu mest bara känns i kroppen. Karaktärer och minnesbilder rör sig in och ut ur tidslinjen, och här är det tydligt: nutiden bär alltid gårdagen med sig, ingenting står utan sin historia. Det är ett viktigt drag, för det är genom kontext och historia som vi kan se det inneboende våldet i händelser som annars får slippa undan. Det är genom historiens ögon som en nedbränd kåta blir mer än bara en hög med aska.

”Ni nordiska barn

som går fram så lätt

Som vore ni

helt utan makt

utan förflutet

-

De som gått före er

har visst glömt

att packa er ryggsäck”

- Ur Aednan av Linnea Axelsson

Jag tror att Aednan gav mig ännu en bit kraft, gav mig orken att veckla ut den där kartan, dra med fingret längs med floderna, försöka hitta punkten där jag är. Det finns en värme i att veta att vi är många som vandrat samma leder. Samlats på samma punkt. En del av mig undrar vart fan jag ska ta vägen nu. En annan minns att vi är många, och att vi leder varandra när föret blir svårt.

Utgåvan jag läste släpptes 2018 av Albert Bonniers förlag.

#aednan #linnea axelsson #bonniers #bokrecension #litteratur

[underthepile]

Am I that dumb

that I can’t manage

to keep my own

language alive

-

I just let it slip away

be driven from my children

—Linnea Axelsson, Ædnan

#linnea axelsson #translation #aednan #Ædnan

[kammartinez]

#reading #writing #language #translation

[kamreadsandrecs]

#reading #writing #language #translation

[steveliz]

Linnea Axelsson "Ædnan" vinner Augustpriset

Linnea Axelsson “Ædnan” vinner Augustpriset

Årets vinnare av Augustpriset har utsetts. Stockholm. Magnus Västerbro har prisats för sin bok “Svälten” och Emma AdBåge för “Gropen”. P1 Kulturs Måns … Read More

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[studentbokhandeln]

Härliga tider! Nu blir det omskyltning! Tre kanonbra Augustprisvinnare får podiet helt för sig själva. Linnea Axelssons "Ædnan" är tillfälligt slut hos Bonniers, så passa på och hugg den när du ser den!

#bokhandel #uppsala