Literature and Fiction · Hardback

Heart of the Forest. Sydänmettä.

Norwegian title: Hjerteskog. Sydänmettä.

M. Seppola Simonsen

Winner of the prestigious Tarjei Vesaas' debutant prize 2022Winner of the 2023 Havmann's Prize

M. Seppola Simonsen's debut collection is an investigation of Kven identity and loss of language in contemporary Norway. The poems move through family and generations, nature and animal life, dreams and visions, body and heart. They pursue the echoes of abandoned lives and forgotten language, in search of who we are in the shadow of what once was. How much of us is hidden, and perhaps lost, in those who lived before us? These are poems about being a stranger to oneself, to one's own language, nature, and homeland.