Aednan

In Northern Sami, the word AEdnan means the land, the ground and the earth. In this majestic verse novel, Linnea Axelsson chronicles the fates of two Indigenous Sami families over a hundred years as they are expelled from their ancestral home, giving powerful voice to a history under threat of erasure. In the 1910s, Ristin and Ber-Jona try to care for their infant twins while migrating their reindeer herd to their summer pasture. As a border is imposed between northernmost Sweden and Norway, the family faces tragedy when it is forced to migrate south. In the 1970s, Lise - part of a new generation of Sami grappling with questions of identity and inheritance - reflects on her traumatic childhood, when she was placed in a "nomad school" to be stripped of her ancestors' language. Moving into the 2010s, Lise's daughter Sandra seeks to reclaim her heritage, becoming an activist fighting for reparations in a highly publicized land rights trial. With grand scope and stunning, crystalline language, AEdnan weaves together a chorus of voices from across a century into a profound and moving epic of Sami life.