CBR15passport books from different countries (Sweden/Sapmi)
Stolen, by Ann-Helen Laestadius, is a novel that is dark, disturbing and based in reality. It is the fictional story of Elsa, a 9-year-old Sami girl, who witnesses the brutal killing of her reindeer calf and is then threatened with death by the man who did it. But Stolen is also the real story of the Sami, an indigenous minority whose lives, culture and history are tied to herding reindeer and who have been persecuted by their neighbors for generations. Laestadius writes in her Acknowledgements, “These things are happening in Sapmi today and have been for a long time.” Trigger warning: this novel contains descriptions of animal cruelty, suicide, and threats of physical violence. In an interview with the NYT, Laestadius describes the anger she felt upon learning more about the situation Sami face in Sweden (Laestadius is part Sami but did not grow up herding). The character Elsa, her family and community are rightfully angry about the way they and their herds are abused and ignored by authority. As a reader, I found myself angry on their behalf.
Stolen is divided into three parts. Part 1 takes place in 2008 when when Elsa is nine-years old and happens upon Robert Isaksson murdering her calf. He is gleeful and Elsa is devastated. When Isaksson sees her, he stops and makes a slicing motion across his throat, making clear what is in store for her if she says anything. When her family and the police ask her later if she saw who committed the crime, Elsa says no; she is terrified of what could happen to her if she tells. The thing is, everyone knows very well who did it; everyone knows Robert Isaksson kills reindeer but no one ever catches him in the act. Moreover, the local police seem uninterested in conducting real investigations into these slaughters. By the time they show up, any tracks that would lead to Isaksson are gone, and witnesses don’t wish to speak up. As far as the police are concerned, the killings are “theft” and not a priority when they are short on manpower and have a large territory to police. But for the Sami, reindeer aren’t “property.” Elsa and her brother Mattias, when marking reindeer calves with their family mark, say, “I do not own you, you belong to yourself. You are only mine on loan.” For the Sami, reindeer herding is a way of life, it is the heart of their history and culture. The mutilation and theft of reindeer is a hate crime. The dominant Swede population, however, seems not to care at all. Locals complain about having to slow down for reindeer and having to adjust their lives to the herds’ migrations. They refer to the Sami by the slur “Lapp” and believe all manner of stereotypes about them. The division between Swedes and Sami is reinforced by their separate schools and complicated by the Swedes’ history of forcing past generations of Sami to attend Swedish speaking and/or Christian schools. Some Sami have given up reindeer herding, lost their language and moved from the village to the towns and cities.
Parts 2 and 3 are set ten years later in 2018, when Elsa has finished school and is still living in the village. Divisions between Swede and Sami and amongst the Sami themselves become clearer now that Elsa is an adult. Robert Isaksson is still killing reindeer with impunity and now he has a partner in crime named Petri. The Sami are facing a number of threats: climate change is a threat to herding as is the encroachment of mining on pasture lands; some young people are drifting away from herding, seeing no future in it, while others succumb to despair and suicide. Elsa, who lost someone dear to her to suicide when she was a child, is beginning to understand the hard choices that younger people are facing, and she bucks against the traditionalism that dictates only male heads of households can have leadership roles in the reindeer collective. Most of all though she is still angry about the killing of her calf ten years ago, about all the killings that the police have ignored, and Elsa decides to take action. What she does is brave, but it also has consequences for her community that she did not foresee. The threats to her own life increase, and the resolution, as much as there can be one in a system rooted in bigotry and injustice, was exciting and reality-based. Laestadius shows us some ways to move forward but also that there is much damage that cannot be simply undone.
Stolen is an excellent novel that provides an eye-opening education about indigenous people and discrimination in a part of the world that I think many of us consider to be enlightened and advanced in so many ways. I highly recommend it and look forward to the Netflix version.
