GIRLHOOD (FLICKOR)

Growing up in a remote village in northern Sweden during the 1970s, Lollie and her fiercely loyal friend Ania-Lee believe they can conquer all the mysteries of childhood together. But when a teenager disappears and long-buried memories begin to resurface, Lollie is forced to confront the hidden violence that has shaped the girls’ lives, and to discover that the people who tried hardest to protect her were not always the adults.

When Lollie moves from Stockholm to a small industrial village in northern Sweden, she finds freedom in endless summers, deep forests and a close-knit group of girls who roam the landscape as if the landscape belongs to them. At the centre of her world are two extraordinary friendships: fearless Ania-Lee, her inseparable neighbour and companion, and her older cousin Riitta back in the city, whose fierce, often puzzling protectiveness Lollie won’t understand until many years later.

As they grow older, Lollie and Ania-Lee’s carefree childhood begins to fracture. Then, after a summer festival, a teenage girl disappears. While the village searches for answers, Lollie finds herself haunted by unanswered questions in her own childhood. As the past slowly comes into focus, she realises that the greatest mysteries were never hidden in the forest, but within her own family and her own past, and the realisation that the girls around her understood the dangers long before she did.

Richly atmospheric and emotionally gripping, GIRLHOOD combines the retrospective childhood perspective of Andrev Walden’s Bloody Awful in Different Ways with the quiet literary suspense of Kerstin Ekman’s Blackwater.

Nina van den Brink’s literary fiction debut is a stylistically assured, unforgettable novel about girlhood, memory and the unspoken ways girls learn to protect one another in a world that too often fails them.

Rights Sold

Sweden: Norstedts

REVIEWS

‘A stylistically mature debut author with a distinct voice… The settings, the clothing and the atmosphere are all portrayed so vividly that the reader immediately feels almost uncomfortably close to the story. The landscape through which [the author’s] girls move both quivers with sensual anticipation and dark forces.’
Expressen

‘GIRLHOOD is an intimate, evocative portrayal of childhood that really transports me back to a bygone era.’
Nina Björk, Dagens Nyheter

‘An excellent novel, written with tenderness, anger and an eye for crucial details’
Tidningen Vi

‘Nina van den Brink’s debut novel is an intense and poignant narrative about being a girl, about unbreakable friendship, and about growing up and throwing yourself headlong into life. But it is also about being forced to cope with things and events from which you really ought to have been protected.’
Maria Rogersdotter, ELLE Magazine, Book Tip

‘[A] brilliant portrayal of youth.‘
Jonas Rosenqvist, Campingsverige Book Tip, Rating 4 out of 5

‘The writing is finely crafted, and the imagery and descriptions of settings often seek to break new ground beyond everyday prose. The dialectal and Finland-Swedish elements also help to give the story its own unique colour palette… A powerful debut novel that provokes both laughter and tears.’
BTJ, Rating 4 out of 5

‘For me, it was a real eye-opener, and I’m only now beginning to understand just how vulnerable girls and women are simply because of their gender… The style is rich and evocative, and I’m particularly impressed by how the author uses scents in her descriptions of the setting. It really drew me in and made me feel as though I was actually there. It was a pleasure to read this book. And the fact that the ending turned into a gripping thriller that I found hard to put down certainly didn’t detract. This is a book that both moves and gives food for thought, and a book that I can wholeheartedly recommend – to both women and men.’
Peter Roth, Socialpolitik