Linda Klakken’s collection of poetry called Mother, Wife, Slave (Mamma, kone, slave) is made up of poems about being a queer, proletarian mother of small children in post-Millennial Norway. We like to tell ourselves that, in our time, homosexual people are seen as equals. But maybe you have not tried – like Linda (and many like her) to play with your child and your wife in full view of others. Sure, lesbians are free to be together, but care for a child together?

Klakken’s writing about life as a queer woman is wounded and warm, tough and engaged. It is about an ordinary life that is far from queer. Mother, Wife, Slave is poetry about struggle and liberty. About a small human being fighting for her even smaller but still too exposed place in society and the world at large.