Description

For readers of Rachel Cusk, Lisa Taddeo and the essays of Zadie Smith, Bear Woman is a beautifully wrought memoir from one of Sweden’s bestselling authors

A beautifully written and astonishing memoir of a woman – a writer – in the midst of motherhood, marriage and life.

While struggling with the demands of family and career, the writer discovers a figure from history, Marguerite de la Rocque, a sixteenth-century noblewoman who was abandoned, pregnant, on a remote island in Nova Scotia. When she is finally rescued, her lover and her baby have died, but she has survived this inhospitable wilderness, alone, for two long years. It’s a remarkable story of survival, but one that has been consigned to a footnote.

Delving deeper into Marguerite’s hidden life, the writer begins to question her ability to tell this story, the story of any women in history – or even her own.

‘The deeply personal journey of a writer, surprising and illuminating, and for me, familiar in the most reassuring way as she loses herself in this compelling story’ – Esther Freud, author of Hideous Kinky

Publisher Review

'The deeply personal journey of a writer, surprising and illuminating, and for me, familiar in the most reassuring way as she loses herself in this compelling story' * Esther Freud, author of Hideous Kinky * Ramqvist, in Vogel's translation, is a master of finely observed detail and this book - with a slow-burn obsession at its heart - captivated me. Rarely have I found a book so gentle but enthralling in its telling, so able to distill the subtle turbulence of womanhood, motherhood, and the writer's life. * Jessica J. Lee, author of Two Trees Make a Forest * Ramqvist skillfully blends a story of survival with an autofictional meditation on womanhood ... It adds up to a careful study of a woman's writing life. * Publishers Weekly * Karolina Ramqvist writes with frosty precision the kind of literature that is unforgettable. Her portraits of women hit deep into bone and marrow. * Dorthe Nors on The White City *