Bear Hunter's Daughters

Anneli Jordahl is an author and literary critic. She has written several works of nonfiction, as well as critically acclaimed novels, including Like the Dogs in Lafayette Park and The Bear Hunter's Daughters, which was shortlisted for the Swedish Radio's Novel Prize, the August Prize and France's Prix Fragonard.

“The girls are crass and violent, and so is the prose, translated here from the original Swedish . . . readers will be gripped, hoping to see what becomes of these wild, obstreperous girls on the cusp of womanhood. Recommend to readers looking for something like Kristin Hannah's The Great Alone (2018).” — Booklist"Go jump in a lake! Bawdy, fantastic, and surprisingly poignant, The Bear Hunter's Daughters is the perfect book for the wildest person in your life. Told with brio and humor, this fable of the seven redhaired sisters settles deep in your bones. I loved it from beginning to end." — Keith Donohue, author of The Girl in the Bog and The Stolen Child"Sensual and philosophical." — ELLE (France)"Violence, hunger, cold … a Homeric tale." — Public (France)"An olfactory delight that calls to mind Patrick Süskind’s Perfume. … A page-turner." — Libération (France)"Paradoxically violent and gentle, imbued with archaic traditions as well as an extravagant modernity and freedom." — Télérama (France)"Exceptionally exciting." — Frankfurter Allgemeine (Germany)"A unique, rebellious novel about the untamed life in the vastness of the wilderness." — Buchszene (Germany)"A captivating masterpiece with profound characters and surprising twists." — Bibliomaniacs (Germany)"The harsh existence in the forest is portrayed with immense ardor and wealth of detail. The wind howls and the rain pelts, the sisters watch their crop of potatoes freeze, while they keep themselves warm with booze and fall asleep with horny dreams of men. The days are filled with hard work and punch-ups, the bodies ache, the land is swampy and smells like sludge. … It is bold, it is hilarious and like all inverted worlds, full of revolt!" — Aftonbladet (Sweden)"Anneli Jordahl presents us with a heck of a tall tale. The Bear Hunter’s Daughters is a scathing, expansive concoction about a family beyond societal control. Not in the 1800s but today. Other teenagers carry mobile phones. The severely unkempt Leskinen sisters carry knives and nooses. … This novel should first and foremost be regarded as a hymn to storytelling itself. Stories that pull you in, that take your breath away, that provoke astonishment, sadness and horror." — Arbetarbladet (Sweden)"Jordahl’s prose has a stylish sparsity and luster which create an illusion of passed down oral storytelling with the austere Nordic poetry of a Norse saga, especially in the sisters’ dialogues. The Bear Hunter’s Daughters takes place on the verge between fairy-tale and myth, in a struggle that puts civilization and freedom at opposing ends. … Are freedom and civilization truly mutually exclusive? Anneli Jordahl’s tall tale of a novel feels more authentic than many contemporary realistic novels." — Göteborgs-Posten (Sweden)"With unbridled imagination, black humor and a keen eye, [Anneli Jordahl] gives life to a set of siblings I will find it hard to forget." — Tidningen Vi (Sweden)