Atmospheric and dark: A journey through an empty and desolate Sweden

Hanna Nordenhök's latest novel plunges readers into a post-pandemic Sweden, a landscape eerily devoid of human life. The story centers on Valeria, a doctor who undertakes a somber journey from Stockholm to Malmö to cremate her father on the beach.

The narrative unfolds in the aftermath of a swift and devastating pandemic. As Valeria travels, she encounters a "raw and clean-swept world." The descriptions paint a bleak picture: rainbows appear "powerless" in the sky, rapeseed fields are "gray-brown, indistinguishable from the rest of the plain," and small towns are marked by their "stench of decay."

Valeria is not entirely alone on her journey. She travels with two children she found and took in, as well as a female drug addict she rescued from the hospital. However, the drug addict has disappeared along the way. The novel employs a non-linear structure, beginning at the story's conclusion and moving backward through flashbacks to its initial events.

This narrative technique provides a welcome depth to what might otherwise be a straightforward road movie. The theme of a journey through a potentially hostile post-apocalyptic landscape, often with a child symbolizing hope for humanity's future, has been explored in works ranging from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" to "The Last of Us." Nordenhök's novel features two children, a brother and sister, who represent this fragile hope.