SÆLSAFARI – SEAL SAFARI
By Karen Strandbygaard
SEAL SAFARI IS a razor-sharp drama about our fascination with fame and our longing to be seen.
A WRITER WITH limited success is on summer vacation with her husband and their two children in their small sailboat. In a harbor in the Swedish archipelago, she spots an international movie star vacationing with his family in a large steel and glass house high up on a cliff.
HER DAYS ARE filled with thoughts of the world-famous actor, but things don’t go as she hopes when she finally comes face to face with him, and events quickly escalate – suddenly involving everyone at the harbor.
ABOUT THE BOOK
First published by People’s, Denmark 2025
RIGHTS SOLD
Denmark, People’s
REVIEWS
Karen Strandbygaard has written a modern Gothic horror story about a family on a sunny sailing holiday in the Swedish archipelago. Seal Safari is a real surprise.
– Politiken
The author has a good grasp of narrative contrasts. First, she lulls her reader into a sense of calm with the idyllic Swedish archipelago, then she strikes with satanic revelations of human folly. (…)
Hugh Grant should know that he is the model (for a lot) in Karen Strandbygaard’s successful satire on celebrity fever, embarrassment, and rejected herd animals. Curiosity, envy, and self-righteousness are exposed as threats to a normal code of conduct, and the novel shows how false notions about someone else’s expected egocentricity can cause ordinary people to collapse morally. It is about embarrassment, not just as a personal act, but as a disturbing cultural trait.
– Weekendavisen
I don’t want to reveal the main plot of Karen Strandbygaard’s new novel. I’m afraid that, like me, you’ll think that it can’t be turned into a whole novel. It’s too small. What is the author thinking? But it can be turned into a whole novel, because Strandbygaard once again succeeds in making smoldering embers burst into flames and turn into a terrifying ending.
– Jyllands Posten
BOOKS
Fiction
