Sami author and August Prize winner Ann-Helén Laestadius  will be interviewed by Sami activist Petra Laiti about the novel Stöld.

Stöld (2021) is Ann-Helén Laestadius’s eleventh book and her first novel for adults. It was named 2021 Book of the Year in Sweden.

The publisher Romanus & Selling describes Stöld as a wild and beautiful yoik to the life of reindeer herding, but also as an exciting novel about a rarely portrayed reality in the north. There, reindeer are hunted and brutally killed and the police do not investigate the crimes, and tensions between Sami and other villagers poison generations. Stöld is based on real-life events. The Finnish translation of the book will be published in the spring of 2022, with the title Varkaus.

About the author:

Ann-Helén Laestadius, born in 1971, grew up in Kiruna and has her Sami and Tornedalian roots in Nedre Soppero. In 1999 she moved to Solna. She is a writer and journalist.

In 2007, she made her debut with the youth book Sms från Soppero for which she won a manuscript competition. In 2016, the youth novel Tio was published and awarded the August Prize in the category of best children and young people’s book. In 2017, she won the Norrland Literature Prize and was a summer presenter on Sveriges Radio’s P1.

Ann-Helén Laestadius always returns to her roots in Kiruna and Norrbotten in her books. She often writes about identity, belonging to different cultures, and not least the importance of the family and relatives.