Robert Macfarlane and By the Fire: Lit Hub review

It's EARTH DAY!

Lit Hub, the always-worth-reading online source for essays, reviews, and all things literary, has just published an interesting piece by Andrew Ervin about Robert Macfarlane's upcoming book, Underland, and By the Fire that ties them together under the comprehensive topic of threats to the North from climate change.


As a fan of Macfarlane's visionary prose about landscape and  history in the British Isles, I was honored to see my translation reviewed with his book. Can't wait until June when I can add Underland to his earlier book, The Old Ways, about paths, journeys, and memories.

Here They Can Still Tell Stories: Two Sami Folktales in the Norwegian American

The Norwegian American, based in Seattle but with ten thousand readers all over the U.S., is the last of the five hundred newspapers once published for immigrants in this country. With a modern look, articles and reviews, and lots of great recipes, the English-language paper is a welcome sight in my mailbox every two weeks. I really am going to try to make one of the recipes soon, but until I do, I find it enjoyable just to read the paper while eating my lunch.

In the current issue you'll find my article about By the Fire, the Sami folktales I translated from Danish, published this month by the University of Minnesota Press. In addition there are two complete folktales, "The Fox Tricks the Bear and Makes a Sami Man Rich," and "The Sickness Spirit that Arrived on a Stick of Wood" for a taste of the collection, collected and illustrated by Emilie Demant Hatt. 

Linocut from By the Fire, by Emilie Demant Hatt, translated by Barbara Sjoholm, University of Minnesota Press, 2019

Histories: Three generations of Sámi artists at the Queen Sonja Art Stable, Oslo

On show this year in central Oslo, in the former Royal Stables of the palace, an important art exhibition is taking place until the end of August 2019.

Histories is a wide-ranging exhibition presenting 61 works by three generations of Sámi artists from Norway, Sweden and Finland. Included are such long-established and influential artists as Iver Jåks (1932–2007), the post-war sculptor, craft artist, and painter. Two artists who began their careers in the 1970s, Norwegian Sami Synnøve Persen and Swedish Sami Britta Marakatt-Labba, are also well-represented, along with a number of younger Sami artists from different fields. 

Detail, History (tapestry), Britta Marakatt-Labba

  Some years ago I had the pleasure of viewing Marakatt-Labba’s tapestry, titled History, imposing in size (20 meters long), but also captivating in its embroidered figures and landscapes from Sami history in on a long wall at the Arctic University of Tromsø. This is the tapestry’s first exhibition in Oslo, though it’s also been shown in New York and Europe.

For more details, see the exhibition’s brochure (PDF).