White City - Brossura

Though the plot of Ramqvist’s English debut may make it sound like a crime thriller, the pace is lulling, the writing sensuous and patiently observed . . . the book feels, more than any thriller, like an allegory of parenting . . . Delicate and unsparing.” Kirkus Reviews

The White City is the first novel I have read that follows the adventures of a dyad, a character with two bodies not one, a mother, Karin, and her nursing, still speechless infant, Dream. Ramqvist’s acute rendering of embodied sensual experience combined with her evocation of her double character’s increasingly desperate circumstances create a story of high tension, startling insights, and lasting resonance.” Siri Hustvedt, author of The Blazing World

A stirring portrait of human melancholy that fills a Swedish winter with fear, grace, and urgency.” Rebecca Dinerstein, author of The Sunlit Night

Karolina Ramqvist writes with frosty precision the kind of literature that is unforgettable. Her portraits of women hit deep into bone and marrow.” Dorthe Nors, author of So Much for That Winter and Karate Chop

International Praise for THE WHITE CITY

With a vulnerability that brings to mind Cormac McCarthy’s The Road . . . The White City is a seamless and controlled novel vibrating with subtext that cements Karolina Ramqvist’s position as one of Sweden’s most interesting writers.” Expressen (Sweden)

Ramqvist handles this small, frozen thriller masterfully in every detail.” Dagens Nyheter (Sweden)

From the very beginning a suspense is established that never yields.” Vårt land (Norway)

A sharp, compelling examination of the human ideal of strength and perfection . . . The White City is as suspenseful as it is beautiful, a story told from the periphery of the criminal world, a painful portrayal of physical motherhood.” Nöjesguiden (Sweden)

An incredible novel that you experience with all your senses . . . Ramqvist’s narrative voice is unique in contemporary Swedish literature.” Borås Tidning (Sweden)

Provocative . . . these meticulously portrayed physical experiences make for invaluable literature.” NRK (Norway)

In a prose as perfectly glistening as the white sheets of snow outside the window, Karolina Ramqvist never lets go of the reader.” Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)

An incredibly skillfully written novel . . . It bears witness to a writer who knows her craft, who doesn’t need to complicate things. That is high art.” Arbetet (Sweden)

[A] little gem of a book, that ought to be read both for its spare and beautiful language as well as for the sense of unease it creates in the reader.” Skånskan (Sweden)

Ramqvist has a great talent for creating images and building atmosphere . . . The White City portrays a hardened Sweden, and a woman’s vulnerability and struggle . . . it’s well worth the few intense hours it takes to read it.” Dagbladet (Norway)

Brilliant about the nature of emptiness.” Upsala Nya Tidning (Sweden)

Completely ingenious . . . Ramqvist is a painfully conscious interpreter of this crude existence.” Ordfront Magazine (Sweden)

Ramqvist succeeds in poking at discomfort . . . With its tiny shifts, the book gives a consistent impression of an emptiness so light and flickering that the protagonist at any time might vanish into thin air, or become one with the winter landscape that’s waiting there behind the bulletproof glass.” DN Magasinet (Norway)

The White City confirms with desirable clarity Karolina Ramqvist’s position as one of Sweden’s most interesting authors right now.” Lundagård (Sweden)

Karolina Ramqvist is one of the most influential feminists and writers of her generation in Sweden. She has published several novels, short stories, essays, and criticism in leading political and literary publications, and she is the former editor-in-chief of Arena magazine. She lives in Stockholm with her husband and children. The White City is her English debut.