From the internationally bestselling author of the “extraordinary” (Fredrik Backman) novel Stolen comes a harrowing story—inspired by true events—of five Indigenous children forced to attend a government-run boarding school in 1950s Sweden, revealing the emotional scars they carry thirty years later.In the 1950s near the Arctic Circle, seven-year-olds Jon-Ante, Else-Maj, Nilsa, Marge, and Anne-Risten are taken from their families. As children of Sámi reindeer herders, the Swedish state has mandated they attend a “nomad school” where they are forbidden to speak their native language. As the children visit home only sporadically, their parents know little about the abuse they face, much of it at the hands of the housemother, Rita. Those who dare to speak up are silenced. Thirty years later, the five children have chosen different paths to cope with the past. Else-Maj holds strong in her Sámi identity but has turned to religion for comfort, while Anne-Risten now goes by Anne to hide her heritage from friends. Nilsa herds reindeer like his father but harbors a lot of anger, and Jon-Ante struggles with traumatic memories from the school. Then there’s Marge, who is about to adopt a daughter from Colombia, but can’t help questioning if it’s right to take a child from her homeland. Then suddenly, housemother Rita reappears. Now an old, frail woman claiming to have God on her side, she acts like nothing ever happened. But the five former students have neither forgotten nor forgiven her. As the narrative shifts between each of their perspectives, the novel If you had the chance to punish the person who hurt you as a child, would you? Based on the author’s family story, Punished is a searing novel about loss, memory, cultural erasure, and community that vibrates with righteous rage over one nation’s greatest betrayals of its native people.

Ants live in communities, where everyone helps out. Everyone has a task for the community …Everyone is needed.No one has to know everything. One morning, Emelie can’t get out of bed. Her therapist calls it burnout. Her neighbour calls it the tiny work death. She needs to get away from the brightness of the city lights, the noise of the people, the constant demands, so she goes to the woods, pitches her tent overlooking the lake, breathes. And that’s where she sees them, the A man with a sad face.A tall, strong, older woman.A woman in her forties, squatting to examine an ant hill.Another woman in her forties, short, long hair, ample bosom, good posture — the leader?An extremely beautiful man.A slightly younger man, in a Helly Hansen jacket and trucker hat.And a teenage boy, standing a little way from the group. Who are they? What do they mean to each other? And why do they behave in such strange thanking the fish they eat, sleeping under a tree, singing off key, dancing without music, never letting the boy fully in? As Emelie becomes more and more drawn to the Colony, she begins to re-evaluate her own lifestyle. Wouldn’t it be nice to live as these seven do? Apart from society and its expectations. But groups always have their dynamics and roles. Which are you? And what if you want to change?