Published in 2017
200 pages
Karin Margareta Tidbeck (1977) is a Swedish author of fantasy and weird fiction.
Tidbeck debuted with the short story collection Vem är Arvid Pekon? in 2010, followed by the novel Amatka in 2012. Their first work in English, the short story collection Jagannath, was published in 2012 by Cheeky Frawg to favorable reviews, with Gary K. Wolfe describing Tidbeck as “one of the most distinctive new voices in short fiction since Margo Lanagan”. The collection made the shortlist for the 2012 James Tiptree Jr. Award and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. The short story “Augusta Prima”, originally written in Swedish, was translated into English by Tidbeck who won a Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award (2013) in the Short Form category. The English translation of Amatka was published in 2017.
What is this book about?
A surreal debut novel set in a world shaped by language in the tradition of Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin.
Vanja, an information assistant, is sent from her home city of Essre to the austere, wintry colony of Amatka with an assignment to collect intelligence for the government. Immediately she feels that something strange is going on: people act oddly in Amatka, and citizens are monitored for signs of subversion.
Intending to stay just a short while, Vanja falls in love with her housemate, Nina, and prolongs her visit. But when she stumbles on evidence of a growing threat to the colony, and a cover-up by its administration, she embarks on an investigation that puts her at tremendous risk.
In Karin Tidbeck’s world, everyone is suspect, no one is safe, and nothing—not even language, nor the very fabric of reality—can be taken for granted. Amatka is a beguiling and wholly original novel about freedom, love, and artistic creation by a captivating new voice.
