Review of Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles

*Stolen* by Ann-Helén Laestadius, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (2021). Published by Scriber.

Stolen is one of many books that I stumbled across wandering the rows of my local library, and I will admit: first I wasn’t compelled by the cover and the title. I had no idea this book existed, and despite all of the lauding on the back cover, I still was scratching my head at how I’ve never heard of it.

What ultimately ended up convincing me was the fact that was a novel about the Sámi people. I knew of them and the struggles they face as an indigenous group living in Sweden, but I had never read a book about them or their struggles.

Ever since taking a decolonization class through the prisms of Native American history and what decolonization and postcolonialism can look like, I’ve been trying hard to consume more content, whether it be books, stories online, or television shows, highlighting these kinds of perspectives.

It’s been an overarching goal int he past year, and this is why I ended up picking a copy of Stolen up from the library.

Let’s get into the review before I ramble too much.

When Elsa witnesses a man murder her reindeer, it becomes the catalyst for a long fight.

Before we get into the plot of the book, I think it’s important to mention who the Sámi are. They’re native to the Scandinavian region, and a big part of their culture and traditions revolve around raising reindeer.

As we see in the novel, the reindeer are marked by their ears to show who owns what, and they herd them.

The Sámi have been under threat by Swedish settlers, as they’ve continuously come onto their land and threatened their ways of being, and they lack the necessary spotlight due to discrimination and a lack of attention on them. I highly suggest looking up these people and what they face everyday.

Stolen is a novel that comes out of it. Elsa, our protagonist, opens the story when she is only nine, and she wanders out into to visit the family reindeer corral.

When going there, she’s horrified to watch one of their neighbors, Robert, brutally murder her reindeer (she can tell from the ear markings), and she is traumatized by the incident.

When they call the police, no one takes them seriously. This is a theme throughout the novel, but Robert also threatens her to stay quiet, which is why she does so.

The context of what you can Google is this: the Sámi land and killing their reindeer. The Swedish government is supporting this as they turn a blind eye towards all of what’s going on, and the Sámi way of living is completely being threatened as less people are brought into Sámi schools.

Elsa is one of the last students at her school, and her classmate, another girl, and she are the only pupils after a certain point. But worst of all, people like Robert are killing the reindeer because they know it’s their livelihood.

Time passes. Elsa grows up, but Robert continues to kill the reindeer. We learn he has been selling their meet on the black market, and Elsa, now an adult, no longer can handle what people are doing to their land and animals.

No longer is she a little girl who will stay quiet as she watches the world turn a blind eye away from the troubles of her people, and as personal tragedy strikes, she becomes even more determined to make a difference.

So begins the rest of the novel as she takes justice into her own hands.

As she turns up to the police under certain circumstances and demand they take action, or how she ends up calling journalists to find the one person who will tell their story, Elsa will not let this continue any further.

Overall Thoughts

This novel is a mix of crime and coming-of-age, and I will say it kind of works. There were certain points of the novel that had me thinking they were a little difficult to get through, which meant that I was struggling through entire portions before getting back into the groove of things.

I do think this is an important novel to read because of how the author goes into detail about Sámi culture and the (fictional here, but very real in reality) people struggling to survive because they’re targeted by being outsiders to the “norm.”

Whether it’s the grandmother who was kidnapped and sent to a boarding school or the threat of settlers coming in, there certainly is a lot of relevant information packed into this novel. Give it a read if it sounds right up your alley.

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