Loukko by 
Original title: Vänd om min längtan
Author: Ann-Luise Bertell
Published: 2016
Publisher: Förlaget
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 180
Reading material:
English sample
Swedish manuscript
A story of emigration, of mothers, daughters and brothers, and what it is like to live with longing in your heart
This award-winning debut novel delves into the fate of an Ostrobothnian emigree to Canada and the longing which has planted itself in her mind.
The twilight of day is awaiting Maria Alina. The only visitors she has are dead relatives, J. R. Ewing of Dallas, and a home care nurse whose name she can’t remember. She has, however, an important task remaining: to write the story of her life for her daughter on the other side of the Atlantic. If there is one thing Maria Alina regrets in her life, it’s that she was silent when she should have spoken.
Death, sorrow, and longing have tinted Maria Alina’s life, which opens as a series of intense scenes starting in her childhood. She speaks about trips across the ocean, about staying put and forgetting, about brothers who believed they could fly, and about old women who know how to turn longing around.
A story of boundless yearning, suppressed tears, and restrained people, the novel has been inspired by the story of Bertell’s grandmother.
Ann-Luise Bertell has written a book with great insight into life and its meaning. It lacks neither linguistic elegance, dramatic strength nor events that touch deeply. On the one hand, the novel shows what lovelessness and lack of empathy can cause among us humans, and, on the other hand, how one can influence one's future through the right values and an unwavering belief in one’s own self. It is important to fight to be able to turn around your longing.
Egil Green, Östnyland, Finland
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Rights sold:
FINLAND (in swedish) & SWEDEN: Förlaget, FINLAND: (Finnish): Tammi
