Oneiron

Laura Lindstedt

Original title: Oneiron

Author: Laura Lindstedt

Published: 2015

Publisher: Teos

Genre: Literary Fiction

Pages: 400

Reading material:

English manuscript
Finnish edition
Danish edition
Norwegian edition
Swedish edition
Italian edition

Seven women, all from different countries, stuck in a post-mortem limbo from which there is no escape – except through words and stories

Seven women meet in a white, undefined space seconds after their deaths. Time, as we understand it, has ceased to exist, and all bodily sensations seem to have disappeared.

None of the women can remember what happened to her, or how she got there. Performance artist Shlomith from New York, chief accountant Polina from Moscow, heart transplant patient Rosa Imaculada from Brazil, upper-class Nina from Marseilles who is expecting twins, Wlbgis from the Netherlands, who suffers from throat cancer, Senegalese Maimuna, who dreams of a career as a model, and Austrian teenager, Ulrike. They don’t know each other. They don’t know why they are there – or where they are. In turn they try to remember, to piece together the fragments of their lives, their identities, their lost loves, and to pinpoint the moment they left their former lives behind.

Lindstedt plays with genres from essay to poetry, transitioning from humour to rage – while asking her reader to contemplate the question of death’s inevitability and what follows it. As also in Lindstedt’s acclaimed debut novel Scissors, Oneiron addresses the challenges of communication on several levels.

Lindstedt’s artistic playfulness with the conventions of language, style, and prose makes the novel linguistically refined and impressive. The result is a work of multiple voices and multiple layers, in which modern expressions also assume something brilliantly classical. It is as if the author is striving to reach the infinite small details – the fractals – as she writes whole worlds within the space of the blink of an eye. The white reality of Oneiron, a blank page, is filled with living stories that celebrate human fantasy, with the possibilities that literature affords, and with uncompromising artistic work.

Nordic Council Literature Prize jury

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Rights sold:
FINLAND: Teos (orig.)
BULGARIA: Faber
CZECH REPUBLIC: ARGO spol. s r. o.
DENMARK: Rosinante & Co
FRANCE: Gallimard
HUNGARY: Scolar Kiado
ITALY: Elliot Edizioni
LITHUANIA: Versus Aureus
NORWAY: Oktober
POLAND: Poznanskie
ROMANIA: Editura Paralela 45
SPAIN: Armaenia Editorial
SWEDEN: Norstedts
TURKEY: Everest Yayınları
WORLD ENGLISH: Oneworld Publications

Foreign covers

About author

Laura Lindstedt

Laura Lindstedt (b. 1976) became a critical darling with her adoption-themed debut novel Scissors (Sakset, Teos 2007), which earned her a nomination for the Finlandia Prize, the country’s most prestigious literary honour. Lindstedt’s second novel Oneiron (Teos 2015), a work of speculative fiction that takes place in the mysterious moments that follow one’s death, earned her the coveted Finlandia Prize of 2015 and was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2017. Lindstedt’s success has continued with My Friend Natalia (Teos 2019) which has earned critical acclaim and has been sold to 12 territories. Together with author Sinikka Vuola, she has authored 101 tapaa tappaa aviomies (101 Ways to Kill Your Husband, Siltala 2022) which has been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize of 2024.

She is currently completing her Ph.D. thesis on French author Nathalie Sarraute.

Bibliography


2019, Literary Fiction

Laura Lindstedt

My Friend Natalia


2015, Literary Fiction

Laura Lindstedt

Oneiron


2007, Literary Fiction

Laura Lindstedt

Scissors