Dr. Maren Johnson, Luther College’s Associate Professor of Nordic Studies and Torgerson Center for Nordic Studies Director, facilitates a monthly bokprat, discussing Scandinavian authors and Scandinavian life. Join us in June for a discussion of The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Miller.
In 1916, Sven Ormson leaves his restless life in Stockholm to seek adventure in Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago where four months of darkness bring both the splendor of the Northern Lights and the danger of polar bear attacks. His time as a miner ends when an avalanche nearly kills him, leaving him disfigured and prompting him to flee even further to an uninhabited fjord where he builds a hut and lives alone with his loyal dog, testing himself against the elements. The teachings of a Finnish fur trapper, letters from his family, and the support of a Scottish geologist help him survive his first winter. Years into his isolation, an unlikely visitor soothes his loneliness, setting off a chain of events that brings him into a family of fellow castoffs and shapes the course of his life. Written with wry humor and in prose as breathtaking as the stark landscape it evokes, The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven is a testament to human resilience and connection, reminding us that even in the most inhospitable conditions, we are never beyond the reach of love.
