My Brother

Jana is returning to see her twin brother Bror, still living in the family farmhouse in the rural north of Sweden. The house is decrepit and crumbling, and Bror is determindly drinking himself into an early grave. The siblings are both damaged by horrific childhood experiences, buried deep in the past, but Jana cannot keep running. Alive with the brutality and beauty of the landscape, My Brother is a novel steeped in darkness and violence - about abuse, love, complicity, and coming to terms with the past. It’s the story of a homecoming without a home: a story of forgiveness.

Karin Smirnoff lives in Hertsånger, Sweden. She worked as a journalist before quitting her job to buy a wood factory. After a couple of years, she wrote her debut novel, My Brother, which was discovered on the slush pile. It became a critically acclaimed bestseller and has since been shortlisted for the prestigious August Prize, translated into eleven languages, and optioned for TV by the producers behind The Bridge.

Dr Anna Paterson used to work as a neuroscientist and is now a writer and an award-winning translator from Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and German into English. Her own recent writing has focused on the relationship between literature and environmental issues.