Antarctica of Love

"Compassionate and complex" Financial Times"Stridsberg writes with chilling poise" New York Times"A haunting portrait of the starkest meanings of love and family. Stridsberg's literary talent left me awestruck" KATE REED PETTY, author of True StoryA FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021Inside me was voiceless silence, above me only bare defenceless sky and beneath me the earth's unrelenting gravity, pulling me downThe moment of Inni's death will never end. Not ever. Murdered one summer's day on a lake shore at the heart of a distant, rain-washed forest, she tells the story of the moment her life was violently extinguished by an anonymous man.But amidst that moment of death lies the story of what came before, and of the lives that carry on afterwards. This is the story of her children, her parents and the chain of choices, tragedies and accidents that lead her to a life on the streets and take her into the wrong crowd, the wrong places and, finally, the wrong car with the wrong person.The Antarctica of Love is the unflinching testimony of a woman on the margins, giving voice to the voiceless and offering an insight into depths of absolute vulnerability, brutality and isolation. Hauntingly beautiful yet at times disturbing, this is a devastating story of unexpected love, tenderness and light in the total darkness.Translated from Swedish by Deborah Bragan-Turner