Requiem for a Mother
Requiem for a Mother is Elisabeth Åsbrink’s mourning diary. A book about grieving a mother and a relationship strained by conflict and tensions, but also of acknowledging moments of deep connection.
In short passages – sometimes only a single sentence – emotions of loss, relief, anger, and tenderness are woven together.
A requiem is a mass for the dead, derived from the Latin requies, meaning rest, repose. And it is this longing for something to come to rest as well as finding peace oneself, that characterises Elisabeth Åsbrink’s condensed prose.
The echoes of history and the world, together with her uncompromisingly personal approach and an indomitable will to delve even deeper into the very essence of humanity, make Åsbrink one of the most powerful writers of our time – and her requiem a book that everyone ought to read. Svenska Dagbladet
Åsbrink’s ability to make the text bleed in flashes of straightforward prose is reminiscent of both Brahms’s Requiem (which forms the soundtrack to the book) and Mozart’s otherworldly Requiem. Dagens Nyheter
‘Requiem for a Mother’ is a short book, only 112 pages, but very rich in content, at once dense and spacious. It resembles notes, prose poetry and aphorisms. The tone is matter-of-fact, searching, sometimes restrainedly furious. Göteborgsposten
Elisabeth Åsbrink is a master of words, and when they are as condensed as they are in ‘Requiem for a Mother,’ just over a hundred pages with short paragraphs, on some pages only a few sentences, the result is intense. Borås Tidning
I really like ‘Requiem for a Mother’; how it rawly and unsentimentally shows the more thorny sides of grief. Expressen
With short, poetic lines, Åsbrink depicts both relief and grief, which gives a close and personal picture of loss. Sverige Radio
