Currently alive
Original title: Nu levande
Author: Sara Lövestam
Original publisher: Piratförlaget, 2022
Genre: Fiction
Monika has come to terms with her fate of not having a child, and has even begun to feel harmonious about her future without children. She has a new love interest, Claes from the writing camp; her genealogy research has begun to unlock a riveting mystery; and she feels purpose and a sense of parenthood through her relationship with her troubled teenage neighbor Texas.
Claes knows how hard Monika has been trying for a baby, and he feels hopeful that he will be the one to solve her problem. He reminds her that there are still methods to try. How about they apply for egg donors in Russia? Monika is torn, caught between the still-alluring fantasy of motherhood that she thought she had left behind and freedom from this torturous process. What is her true purpose, and what does she have to do in order to fulfill it?
The answer might come from her ancestors. Monika’s research has led her to Arvidsjaur, where a 200-year-old murder among settlers and reindeer herders beckons to be solved. What message did her ancestors leave for her to uncover? She digs deeper and deeper into the roots of her family tree. Can she come to terms with not adding to its branches?
Sara Lövestam pens a literary trilogy about a woman’s quest of becoming a mother and finding who she really is intertwined with Sweden’s own complicated history. This is Sara Lövestam’s most personal work up to date, having spent more than eight years working on it and using her own fertility treatment as the base of her research. Full of warmth, empathy and wit, it is a journey through one woman’s infertility and all that comes within through the lens of a writer at the best of her ability.
