Engelsk utgave av Ann-Helén Laestadius‘ roman Straff (2023), andre bok i Sápmitrilogien.
Romanen skildrer hvordan samiske barn ble skilt fra sine familier. De ble tvunget til å gå på nomadeskoler hvor det var forbudt å snakke samisk og hvor de fikk lære at dere egen kultur var noe å skjemmes over.
Fortellingen er basert på virkelige hendelser med utgangspunkt i et av den svenske statens største svik mot samene. Nomadeskolen har ødelagt generasjoner og resultert i tap av språk, skam og brutte familiebånd.
Oversatt til engelsk av Rachel Willson-Boyles.
In the 1950s near the Arctic Circle, seven-year-olds Jon-Ante, Else-Maj, Nilsa, Marge, and Anne-Risten are taken from their families. As children of Sámi reindeer herders, the Swedish state has mandated they attend a “nomad school” where they are forbidden to speak their native language. As the children visit home only sporadically, their parents know little about the abuse they face, much of it at the hands of the housemother, Rita. Those who dare to speak up are silenced.
Thirty years later, the five children have chosen different paths to cope with the past. Else-Maj holds strong in her Sámi identity but has turned to religion for comfort, while Anne-Risten now goes by Anne to hide her heritage from friends. Nilsa herds reindeer like his father but harbors a lot of anger, and Jon-Ante struggles with traumatic memories from the school. Then there’s Marge, who is about to adopt a daughter from Colombia, but can’t help questioning if it’s right to take a child from her homeland.
Then suddenly, housemother Rita reappears. Now an old, frail woman claiming to have God on her side, she acts like nothing ever happened. But the five former students have neither forgotten nor forgiven her. As the narrative shifts between each of their perspectives, the novel asks: If you had the chance to punish the person who hurt you as a child, would you?
Based on the author’s family story, Punished is a searing novel about loss, memory, cultural erasure, and community that vibrates with righteous rage over one nation’s greatest betrayals of its native people.
ISBN: 9781668045510. Simon & Schuster, 2025. 448 sider. Heftet. 231.- (kan kjøpes gjennom Adlibris)
