Based on real events, Ann-Helén Laestadius’s debut novel for adults highlights the discrimination Sweden’s ethnic minority Sami have suffered over the years for their determination to pursue a traditional lifestyle as reindeer herders. In the course of her research, Laestadius, of mixed Sami heritage herself, consulted more than 100 police reports of killed and maimed reindeer, none of which resulted in prosecution.
Nine-year-old Elsa lives in a village just inside the Arctic Circle. Her family belongs to a collective founded on firm ties of kinship, Sami ancestry being recorded in prized archives. Life is structured around the cycles of animal husbandry, but the reindeer are far more than just a source of meat and pride. The title is pointed; when non-Sami hunters begin torturing and mutilating the precious animals, the local police force refuse to register the crimes as anything more than theft. They have more pressing matters to investigate, but for the Sami such attacks threaten their very existence.
