The Home of the Drowned

A powerful family saga set in the wilds of Sweden, where the summer settlement of the reindeer-herding Sámi people is flooded without warning, and three women must fight for their heritage and future in a changing world
The sides of the mountain were shining almost red under the night sun, while rivers flowed white as milk down their slopes. People kept wading back and forth. They'd all moved west just like always, and it had taken some time to reach the village. Not many days, but long enough to arrive too late. The dam was finished. They'd known it. But no one realized how quickly the lake would fill up.
Spring 1942, the time of the golden midnight sun. When Ingá, her mother Ravdná and aunt Ánne return to the summer settlement, they are hor­rified to discover that their village has been drowned, leaving the shore, their goahtis huts and the beautiful birch forest submerged beneath a strange underwater landscape. Without any notice to the community, the Company has dammed the lake for hydropower. Modern society is creeping closer with its demand for electricity and comfort, and with little consideration for its impact on the natural world or on those who have inhabited it for centuries. The villagers have great respect for the lake; they have learned that you can be on the water, but not in the water; most of them cannot even swim.
The Home of the Drowned is the story of a small family of nomadic women: a rebellious mother who finds herself fighting a lonely battle, a tender sister who mourns the loss of a child, and a pragmatic daughter who wishes to put the past behind her in order to live a life just like everyone else.

Elin Anna Labba's first book, The Displaced, about the deportation of the Northern Sámi, won Sweden's most prestigious book prize, the August Prize for Best Non-Fiction, in 2020. It was also short­listed for Norrland's Literature Prize and the Storytel Award. She is a journalist and was previously the editor-in-chief of magazine Nuorat. Today she works for the Sámi Authors' Centre, with a mission to strengthen and promote Sámi lite­rature.