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Books : Fiction : Authors, A-Z : F : Fredriksson, Marianne
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This quietly moving story of family, friendship, and love, by the author of Hanna's Daughters , has already become an international best-seller and will no doubt capture the hearts of American readers as well. Simon Larsson is a pensive andd thoughtful boy growing up i Sweden during World War II, fortunate to be safe within a remarkably loving and cohesive community. Half Jewish, he is being raised by his Scandinavian aunt and uncle, who adopted him as their own at birth. In a novel rich in mystical overtones, his adoptive parents take on truly archetypal dimensions. Karin's deep love and compassion is matched by Erik's understated strength and stoicism, and together they create a firm family base from which 11 year-old Simon can grow and dream. But Simon, who doesn't know the story of his birth and adoption, seems set apart from his Scandinavian world by his dark hair and olive complexion, and he often retreats into fantasies to alleviate his feelings of disconnection. When he befriends Isak Lentov, a young Jewish boy from Germany, their families become close in spite of the contrast between Isak's father's religious faith and the Larssons' strictly secular Swedish socialism. These two opposing viewpoints help form a unique framework for Simon and Isak as they come of age and work toward finding meaning in their lives, and as Fredriksson explores relations between fantasy, myth, and reality. --Catherine Sias
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There is a stripped down quality to Marianne Fredriksson's Inge and Mira, a careful paring away of language, until only the essence of an emotion or thought is left. The novel tells the story of an intense friendship between two very different women, the Inge and Mira of the title: "Each had been allotted her own climate: long, dark winter nights to one, days of burning sunshine to the other. One woman was a sceptic who put her trust in reason; and the other talked intimately with God every day." Swedish Inge is tall, blonde, reserved and Mira is dark and intense, haunted by her memories of abuse and degradation in Pincohet's Chile. Inge's emotional trauma is of the romantic kind, a failed marriage to an alcoholic. The women meet at a garden centre and, after a period of reluctant assessment, they become close. Inge, horrified by Mira's account of her life, decides to help her trace her daughter, one of the many who "disappeared" in the political upheaval; the attempt also reveals some disturbing information about Inge's ex-husband.
The story is a powerful one. In some instances the bare-bones language works well, the simple sentences shock and provoke: "As a child I played on the banks of river Mapocho and now it was running red with blood. A constant stream of dead bodies came floating along." At other times, Fredriksson's staccato tone, translated from the Scandinavian, seems emotionless, almost clichéd. Consequently, the simplistic quality of the prose often strains to convey the complexity of issues raised in Inge and Mira. --Eithne Farry
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