In the village of Tasiilaq in eastern Greenland, one in five inhabitants dies by suicide. A young woman in Niviaq Korneliussen's novel "The Valley of Flowers" goes there to be close to her girlfriend Maliina in her grief over a dead cousin. Everything else looks bright: the nameless narrator has entered a university education in Denmark, she is happily in love, and everywhere, from the parents of Nuuk and Maliina's family in Tasiilaq, love and benevolence flow towards her.
The fact that she is a lesbian is nothing that needs to be hidden, on the contrary, she talks openly and in detail about the nights with Maliina and those around her are happy about their relationship.
But darkness and light have reversed roles in this novel, darkness provides security and warmth, while the merciless light exposes the woman to the gaze of others. In Denmark, she feels like a stranger and she is perceived as different, but at the same time as a stencil, constantly tucked into the compartment "you Greenlanders". The prejudices are also confirmed: she drinks too much, oversleeps and misses exams.
Most stories of young people's break-up from home follow the protagonist's development, her conquest of language, the city and the world – and at some point her disappointment. Here there is no such bow, here on the first page a black raven flies over a burial ground and brings word of misfortune. And each chapter begins with short notes about Greenlanders who have taken their own lives, with their ages and manner of death stated.
Nevertheless, I believe and hope for the longest that things will go well for the novel's self, referred as I am to her point of view and consciousness. And she is so alive, so sensitive and rebellious and searching.
Thus, this novel is not only a story about a single human fate, but also a reckoning with a society that has the world's highest suicide rate, where outspokenness around sex and booze is great, but where there is no help available for addiction, abuse or depression, and where death is silent.
Korneliussen transforms abstract statistics into flesh and blood, she writes in Danish, translated into Swedish by Johanne Lykke Naderehvandi, her style is concrete, with short, straightforward dialogues and thoughts full of strong emotions. It is not possible to read Blomsterdalen from a distance, you have to live in, become one with all the sorrow and longing that is contained there, then it blooms for a long time.