Monika Fagerholm is practically unknown in this country.
A random sample in the German-language newspaper archive since 2004 reveals exactly four articles.
That's not much - and all the more astonishing given that the Swedish-language Finnish writer, who was born in Helsinki in 1961 and has been a fixture in the Nordic countries since her success with "The American Girl" in 2005 at the latest, has been honored with awards, including the renowned Nordic Prize of the Swedish Academy.
She received this for her last novel, "Who Killed Bambi?" from 2019, which has now been published in German in a translation by Antje Rávik Strubel.
The translating writer has not only achieved great things;
she whirls, unusually enough, at that,
when she brings out the unmistakable sound of Fagerholm's breathless prose: "punky, biting, tender".
And she's right.
High time to deal with Monika Fagerholm here in Germany as well.
Sandra Kegel
Responsible editor for the feuilleton.
Follow I follow
Because it is actually his extraordinary tone that characterizes this novel, which focuses on a crime: the brutal gang rape in the fairytale lake landscape not far from Helsinki.
But the story does not want to discuss who the perpetrators are, they are clear from the beginning.
Rather, the novel is a dense weave of stories, memories and dialogues to show what made the rape possible in the first place.