Home of the Drowned

FROM THE WINNER OF SWEDEN’S PRESTIGIOUS AUGUST PRIZE FOR BEST NON-FICTION

The powerful, haunting saga of a family of Sámi women fighting for their way of life in a changing world, when their summer settlement is flooded without warning

'Heart-achingly beautiful' Lisa Ridzén, author of WHEN THE CRANES FLY SOUTH

Every summer, Ingá, her mother Rávdná, and her Aunt Ánne travel west to their village on the lake. But the summer Ingá is thirteen, they arrive to find their home and possessions have disappeared under water, the land flooded by a dam built to supply hydropower to a society that has continually stolen from them.

The Home of the Drowned follows these women’s fortunes over forty years – from 1942 to 1982 – as the water their people have lived near for centuries is transformed into a menacing force that threatens all they hold dear. Defying the authorities, Rávdná decides to build a house on the lake to replace what was lost, becoming an unlikely activist. Meanwhile, Ánne’s health is in decline, and a concerned Ingá merely longs to live like everyone else – an impossible wish when the Swedish state is relentlessly drowning her world.

Drawing on her own family’s history of forced relocation and violent colonial dispossession, Elin Anna Labba’s debut novel brings Sámi history to the fore. The Home of the Drowned reveals connections between land, water and people that hauntingly reverberate with the question: what is it that makes a home?

Translated by Elizabeth Clark Wessel

Elin Anna Labba (Author)
ELIN ANNA LABBA is a Sámi writer and journalist. She has worked as an editor for Sámi magazines and as director of Tjállegoahte, the Sámi Writers’ Centre, which is dedicated to promoting Sámi literature. Her debut, The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow: The Forced Displacement of the Northern Sámi, was awarded the August Prize for Best Non-Fiction, along with several other prestigious awards. In 2024, Labba was appointed Honorary Doctor of Philosophy at Luleå University of Technology in recognition of her contribution to both literary and public discourse and for giving voice to communities shaped by historical and environmental change.

Elizabeth Clark Wessel (Translator)
ELIZABETH CLARK WESSEL is a poet and translator. Originally from rural Nebraska, she now lives in Stockholm, Sweden.