God’s Mercy

When Hillevi, a young, inexperienced midwife, moves from the university town of Uppsala to the wilderness of Svartvattnet (Blackwater) to be with her unofficial fiancé, she is ill prepared for what awaits her. In this frigid, austere, and isolated territory, she encounters the overwhelming and unpredictable forces of nature and demoralizing poverty and ignorance while also gaining access to the unfamiliar world of nomadic Sami reindeer herders. A single traumatic event, never fully confronted, has devastating and far-reaching repercussions, but Hillevi also finds unexpected warmth and love. Incorporating elements of the jojk oral tradition of Sami culture, God’s Mercy is a thoroughly engrossing story about the capriciousness of memory, the resilience of the human psyche, and the endless wonder of the wild.

Kerstin Ekman, the author of seventeen widely translated books, lives in rural Sweden. God’s Mercy is the first novel in the ＂Wolfskin＂ trilogy, which includes The Last String and Scratchcards. Linda Schenck lives in Göteborg, Sweden, working as a translator and conference interpreter. Her many translations from Swedish include four other novels by Ekman.