Beauty, Blessing and Hope
A 14-year old girl bleeds to death in a ditch in Zambia. A Justice of
the Supreme Court dies under mysterious circumstances in the United
States. Three activists meet in an apartment in Sweden to receive
information about a catastrophe. A young American girl tries to run
away from her past on a bus. Someone builds a witch's pyramid in a
midwife’s garden. And at the centre of all these events is Ellen Elg, a
Swedish doctor with an unspecified assignment in Africa.
80° från varmvattnet (Beauty, Blessing and Hope) is the first
book in a series about Ellen Elg. It deals with sexuality, the
oppression of women and death in different environments; topics seldom
depicted in Swedish suspense literature.
Karin Alfredsson’s colourful,
yet unsentimental novel - a novel where death hovers in the shadow of
every home, also depicts how individual lives are cynically sacrificed
by multinational industries. As always, it is the most vulnerable who
are the victims, most of which are women. And as usual, it is those who
control the world, those with economic or ideological power that pose
the biggest threat - most of which are men.
First published by Ordfront, Sweden, 2006.
291 pages
Awarded with The Swedish Crime Academy's Debutant Award in 2006
Reviews
"Karin Alfredsson has written a committed thriller (...) It is exciting, effective and important."
Maria Schottenius, Dagens Nyheter
"Political settings behind literary portrayals have an unfortunate
habit of weighing down the actual story, diminishing it, flattening it
and turning it into something hard to read or outright boring. Such is
not the case with this book. The theme of poor Africans and how the
western world exploits them, along with pharmaceutical companies’
ruthless quest for profits, is here, and it is clear and strong. But
where Mankell before her did not succeed in getting the story off the
ground using this theme in his book Kennedy’s Brain (Kennedys hjärna)
from last year, Alfredsson does. This is a compact and linguistically
well-told thriller that keeps the reader in a firm grasp right up to
the last page. The fact that it has additional dimensions beyond pure
suspense makes it that much better."
HIV Aktuellt
"80° från varmvattnet (Beauty, Blessing and Hope) is about
oppression and power in various forms, about the vulnerability of women
and colonial exploitation. (...) Karin Alfredsson is able to depict
each phenomenon with a strong and exacting sense of being there. Her
use of language is intense and intrusive. (...) This is an impressive
and deeply disturbing novel. It is an urgent and skilful depiction of
post-colonial oppression and the blind ruthless exploitation that
multinational companies engage in with vulnerable people who do not
have the power or the language to protest loudly enough to be heard by
those on the comfortable sofas in the western world."
Crister Enander, Sundsvalls tidning
"80° från varmvattnet (Beauty, Blessing and Hope) is indeed a
disturbing book. At the same time it is an intelligent story about
political resistance, packaged as a thriller."
Rebecka Bohlin, Arbetaren
"The journalist Karin Alfredsson has a mission with her thriller: to
open our eyes to the inequities that affect women in the third world,
and she does it well. It touches you and makes you feel angry and
involved."
Damernas värld
"Om det inte hade funnits vittnen, några kvinnor som sålde rostade majskolvar på andra sidan järnvägen, hade lokföraren inte blivit trodd."
AIDS-sjuka som inte får stanna hemma, eftersom de kan vara förhäxade, får vård på ett katolskt hospice.
Byns vattenkran öppnas en gång varje dag. Kvinnorna kommer med sina dunkar och hinkar.
Alla kvinnor och flickor bär saker på huvudet. Ibland pojkar också.
"Varför ska de föda barn så här unga? frågar han rätt ut i luften."