The End of Drum-Time

FINALIST FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

An epic love story in the vein of Cold Mountain and The Great Circle, about a young reindeer herder and a minister’s daughter in the nineteenth century Arctic Circle

In 1851, at a remote village in the Scandinavian tundra, a Lutheran minister known as Mad Lasse tries in vain to convert the native Sámi reindeer herders to his faith. But when one of the most respected herders has a dramatic awakening and dedicates his life to the church, his impetuous son, Ivvár, is left to guard their diminishing herd alone. By chance, he meets Mad Lasse’s daughter Willa, and their blossoming infatuation grows into something that ultimately crosses borders--of cultures, of beliefs, and of political divides--as Willa follows the herders on their arduous annual migration north to the sea.

Gorgeously written and sweeping in scope, Hanna Pylväinen’s The End of Drum-Time immerses readers in a world lit by the northern lights, steeped in age-old rituals, and guided by passions that transcend place and time.

Hanna Pylväinen is the author of the novel We Sinners, which received a Whiting Award and a Balcones Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Chicago Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal; she is the recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, as well as residencies from MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Lásságámmi Foundation. She has taught at the University of Michigan, Princeton University, Virginia Commonwealth University; currently, she is on the faculty at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. She lives in Philadelphia.