Literature and Fiction · Hardback

The Magnolia Woman

Norwegian title: Magnoliadamen

Tor Åge Bringsværd

Heline is most beautiful in the spring. She's already started to get buds on her neck. In a fortnight, her long, green hair will be full of white flowers. Heline is 10% magnolia.

Kaj lives on the outskirts of civilisation, or what's left of it, with Heline and the cat, Zakkeus. In their world, some people have taken on genetic material from plants and animals, and this material is gradually taking over. Both Kaj and Heline know that there isn't much time left before she isn't 10%, but 100% plant. Until it might just be Kaj and the cat. But they choose to do the best they can, live as well as they can, together, even though the wildfires are becoming an ever-greater threat, it occasionally rains acid from the sky, spooky creatures roam the forest, and the food deliveries by drone become fewer and eventually stop altogether.

The Magnolia Woman is a story about who we become when the world falls apart, but most of all: who we should be, can be, if we retain our dignity, love and curiosity. In classic Bringsværdian style, this little story is in a big story. It is a story for our time, and a story for eternity, a story about what it means to be human.