Nothing Really Disappears

A turbulent story about animal-industrial complex, idealism, and companionship that transcends the boundaries between species.

A professional activist approaching middle age realizes that she has lost her faith in life. For years she has been sneaking around in cowsheds, stared at horrible video materials and been patiently enlightening people. Still, even now someone asks whether she has thought about what the carrots feel. The animal-industrial complex continues to increase its output and it doesn’t matter that fashion houses are refusing fur clothing and people are pouring oat milk into their coffee. Faced with an overwhelming opponent, she must choose whether to continue fighting or whether it’s best to run away.

NOTHING REALLY DISAPPEARS is Laura Gustafsson’s sixth novel.


Wilderness Warrior

When the End of the World As We Know It arrives, Ahma is prepared. He has his house in the backwoods, a food cache and vegetable patch, and his guns. He can face The End alone, just like his namesake ’ahma’, the wolverine. Yet for reasons unknown even to him, the hardware store’s cashier Pamsu, Linnea, who looks after useless creatures like horses, and Kapu, the manliest man alive, all crash at Ahma’s cabin and he is forced to join their small tribe.

Laura Gustafsson’s third novel is a study of the human race: of the individual and the community. It’s inspired by survivalism, green movements, the Hobbesian social contract and notion of “a war of all against all”.


Laura Gustafsson

Laura Gustafsson is a novelist and playwright. Recurring themes in her work include oppression, violence, animal rights and the environment, which she approaches with precision, passion, irony and humor.

Gustafsson’s accolades include nominations for the Finlandia Prize and Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, and her works have been translated into French and German.