Nordic Book Club: Punished

Read and discuss literature with our Nordic Book Club Online! On May 6, we인터넷바카라�ll be discussing Punished, a searing new novel about loss, memory, cultural erasure and community by author Ann-Helén Laestadius!

From the internationally bestselling author of the 인터넷바카라�extraordinary인터넷바카라� (Fredrik Backman) novel Stolen comes a harrowing story인터넷바카라�inspired by true events인터넷바카라�of five Indigenous children forced to attend a government-run boarding school in 1950s Sweden, revealing the emotional scars they carry 30 years later. In the 1950s near the Arctic Circle, seven-year-olds Jon-Ante, Else-Maj, Nilsa, Marge, and Anne-Risten are taken from their families. As children of Sámi reindeer herders, the Swedish state has mandated they attend a 인터넷바카라�nomad school인터넷바카라� where they are forbidden to speak their native language. As the children visit home only sporadically, their parents know little about the abuse they face, much of it at the hands of the housemother, Rita. Those who dare to speak up are silenced.

Thirty years later, the five children have chosen different paths to cope with the past. Else-Maj holds strong in her Sámi identity but has turned to religion for comfort, while Anne-Risten now goes by Anne to hide her heritage from friends. Nilsa herds reindeer like his father but harbors a lot of anger, and Jon-Ante struggles with traumatic memories from the school. Then there인터넷바카라�s Marge, who is about to adopt a daughter from Colombia, but can인터넷바카라�t help questioning if it인터넷바카라�s right to take a child from her homeland.

Suddenly, housemother Rita reappears. Now an old, frail woman claiming to have God on her side, she acts like nothing ever happened. But the five former students have neither forgotten nor forgiven her. As the narrative shifts between each of their perspectives, the novel asks: If you had the chance to punish the person who hurt you as a child, would you?