Abandonment

Abandonment is a novel about about three women and three cities which is based on Elisabeth Åsbrink’s own family history.

The storyteller wants once and for all to put a name to the desolate shadow that has followed her through life and that she mistook for normality. Portraying Rita, Sally and Katherine, she traces how secrets, lies and taboos are passed from one generation to the next.

It is a captivating story about love, emigration and human life in the shadow of hatred. It is also the story of the often forgotten fate of the Spanish Jews, who almost all perished during the Holocaust.

REVIEWS

”Abandonment is a rich novel, educational and with a strong political pathos. Despite its heavy subject matter, it´s sometimes surprisingly funny.” Gothenburg Post

”A novel that captivates and lingers. This is partly due to the fact that when Åsbrink strikes the right tone, she is a virtuoso, and partly to the fact that there is a force in this book that seems unstoppable.” Svenska Dagbladet

”Elisabeth Åsbrink is one of the rare authors who maintain such a literary level that they immediately feel too big for their language area. Her new novel Abandonment contributes to this to a great extent, here we are dealing with a book that immediately inscribes itself in the great literary tradition that can harbor such diverse predecessors as Primo Levi and Isaac Bashevis Singer.” Alba

”A very rich, learned and moving book. Elisabeth Åsbrink’s strength has always been to find details in the big picture. The small detail that makes us actually feel the history as it was.” Dagens Nyheter

”Through the author’s veins and in her poetic prose runs a violent story about people who are sorted and ranked based on blood ties. She draws lines between her own sense of abandonment and ancestors who were displaced and then hunted before the Spanish Inquisition.” Aftonbladet