Recent reading

[luzula]

Anaché by Maria Turtschaninoff
Swedish YA fantasy, recced by a friend. I am delighted with this and wish it was available in English so that I could rec it further! One of her books seems to be translated, but not this one. But oneiriad, I think you would enjoy it. It's about a girl (Anaché) in a fantasy nomad culture where people keep sheep and horses. The spirits of animals, plants, and places are close to people's lives, and Anaché has an affinity for them, but they're out of balance because of some people's actions, and the plot of the book is about how to address this. I enjoyed the book from the beginning, but them bam, halfway through there's interesting stuff with gender and I enjoyed it even more. \o/ Will read more of the author's work.

Darra min asp, myllra min värld by Bengt Ehnström and Martin Holmer (Shiver my aspen, swarm my world, only in Swedish)
English title translation maybe not that understandable--it's inspired by a well-known line of Swedish poetry. Anyway, this is a book about the biodiversity tied to aspen trees, with beautiful watercolors.

Comments

[antisoppist]

Oooh Maria Turtschaninoff! I recently reviewed Naondel, which is the second in her Röda Klostret series, for Swedish Book Review (out in the spring) and read the English translation of volume 1, Maresi first, which I've passed on to my 15 year-old. Naondel is currently being translated into English by A.A. Prime, who will do as great a job as she did with Maresi, so I would recommend those for English readers. Pushkin Press has bought the rights to all three in that series but no English publisher has the rights to Anaché as far as I know. The Röda Klostret books are doing great things with worldbuilding and feminism and gender too. I'd warn for rape with Naondel though the POV characters are wives, concubines and slaves and the fact that rape is frequent and normal is kind of the point. It's a prequel. Things have got better by Maresi.

[luzula]

There is rape in Anaché though it's brief and not explicit. But yeah, still with the male-dominated culture though, and a lot of the book is about Anaché pushing back against that in interesting ways. I've gotten Arra from the library now, which is set in the same world.

And thanks for the rec of the Röda Klostret books, I'll probably go on to read them too.

[oneiriad]

*wanders off to see if the Danish libraries has Anaché - oh, there it is - orders ILL*

Enabler.

[luzula]

My devious plan has borne fruit! Looking forward to seeing what you think of it.