Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius

SkanIngrLouise Erdrich meets Jo Nesbø in this spellbinding Swedish novel that follows a young indigenous woman as she struggles to defend her family’s reindeer herd and culture amidst xenophobia, climate change, and a devious hunter whose targeted kills are considered mere theft in the eyes of the law. It is winter, north of the Arctic Circle. A few hours of pale light are all the sun has to offer before the landscape is once more wrapped in darkness. This the land of the Sámi, Scandinavia’s indigenous people. One day when she goes skiing along, nine-year-old Elsa—daughter of reindeer herders—witnesses a man brutally killing her reindeer calf, Nástegallu. Elsa is threatened into silence and refuses to tell anyone about what she saw, but she carries her secret as a dark weight on her heart. Not only are the reindeer the Sámi’s livelihood, but the animals also serve an important spiritual role; attacking a reindeer is an attack on the culture itself. Even though she’s just a child, Elsa