In the midst of a terrorist attack on a bookstore reading by Göran Loberg, a comic book artist famous for demeaning drawings of the prophet Mohammed, one of the attackers, a young woman, has a sudden premonition that something is wrong, changing the course of history. Two years later, this unnamed woman invites a famous writer to visit her in the criminal psychiatric clinic where she’s living. She then shares with him an incredible story–she is a visitor from an alternate future.
As featured in the New York Times, Harper’s, NPR, Washington Post, Book Riot, Tor, LitHub.com and more.
Johannes Anyuru (b. 1979) is a poet, novelist and playwright. He made his debut in 2003 with the critically acclaimed collection of poems Only The Gods Are New. They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears (2017) was a huge success, both critically and commercially, and was awarded the August Prize. Translation rights have been sold to twelve territories and film rights have been acquired by Momento Film.
“It’s a rare author who has such sensitivity with explosive materials…Saskia Vogel’s translation achieves a difficult balance, nimble yet compassionate. She captures Annika’s mash-up of Western slang and Koranic Arabic, its humor often a relief, and also the more complex contemplations of the writer, poetic and touching…I came away thinking of the book as an attempt to forge a more humane means of expression, one that could surmount all our fears and failures.”
Washington Post