Coming soon on the heels of my translation of Sámi Folktales from the Near and Far Worlds, is a travel memoir about Arctic Norway, based on a trip in the summer of 2024 to Finnmark, the northernmost region of the Scandinavian peninsula, a borderland that is home to a historically multicultural society, an expanding tourist industry, and landscapes bearing the marks of colonization, environmental damage, and climate change. It is also the territory of Sápmi, where the Sámi have lived for millennia in settings that have inspired and still reflect an oral storytelling culture.
A travel grant from the generous American Scandinavian Foundation paid my way to the Norwegian counties of Finnmark and Troms to continue studying the lives of two collectors of Sámi folklore, J.K. Qvigstad, a linguist and Lappologist, and Isak Saba, a Sámi politician, teacher, and folklorist. My original plan was to learn more about them and the storytellers in the landscape where the folktales emerged and to use that information for my Introduction to the book and notes to the stories. Perhaps I'd write an article or an essay or two about a part of Norway less familiar to me and to many other travelers.
As it turned out, the whole experience was richer and more fascinating than I could have imagined, and the "essay or two" turned into twenty-two essay-like chapters about travel, translation, the history of WWII in Finnmark, copper mining, polar exploration, North Norwegian and Sámi literature, maps, labyrinths, and of course folktales. University of Minnesota Press, which has published several of my recent books, was thankfully quite enthusiastic about North Coast of the North and because of the timeliness of some of the issues, decided to publish it in May of 2027, in paperback.
They've just announced it on their website and the book can be pre-ordered for 30% off using the promo code MN96760 (expires Jan 1, 2027)
PRE-ORDER NOW: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517922863/north-coast-of-the-north/
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