Synopsis: Ever since Mio’s death, Rut has raised their son alone, creating a life for them: she has a house by the sea, a share of their wealth, and a job at the enigmatic “agency”, which with the help of fictional voices manipulates the public. The boy, now ten, knows nothing about his father: not how he lived, nor how he died. He is safe. Saved.
One day, Rut learns that a boy lying unconscious in hospital has a recording of Mio’s voice. Her hands shaking, she removes the old CD player from his rucksack. The disc shimmers like gold. Mio is speaking to her. Mio who should be dead. He says: “There are roofs from which you can see all the way to the sea. Here in the library, nothing.”
Author talk with Johannes Anyuru
Date: 7 November 2023
Time: 18:30 CET
Location: Zoom | Invitation and registration link will be sent out by email three weeks before the talk.
About Johannes Anyuru
Johannes Anyuru was born in 1979 and grew up in Borås and Växjö. He made his debut with his prize-winning poetry collection Det är bara gudarna som är nya in 2003. In 2017, his novel De kommer att drunkna i sina mödrars tårar (translated into English as They Will Drown in their Mothers’ Tears) won the August Prize for best literary novel. It went on to be a critical and commercial success and was translated into several languages. Johannes Anyuru’s new novel, Ixelles was also nominated for the August Prize in 2022 and is his first novel since his win in 2017.
His poetry collection Städerna inuti Hall was nominated for the August Prize in 2009. The following year, he released his first novel, Skulle jag dö under andra himlar, which garnered much attention.
International breakthrough
Johannes Anyuru’s international breakthrough came with En storm kom från paradiset (A Storm Blew in From Paradise), which has been translated into French, German, English, Norwegian, Danish, Finish and Dutch.
Anyuru was awarded an honorary doctorate at the Faculty of Theology in Lund on 26 May 2023 for “his sharp and sensitive writing, which does not shy away from addressing the burning ethical and political questions of our time such as exclusion, racism and religion.”