MÄNNISKOHAMN – HUMAN HARBOUR

By John Ajvide Lindqvist

“Dad, what’s that? On the ice?”

It’s a glorious winters day. Anders and his six-year-old daughter Maja are standing right at the top of the Gåvastens light house. The ice is covered with snow as far as the eye can reach and Anders cannot see anything unusual in the direction where his daughter is pointing.

Maja goes out to have a look and five minutes later the nightmare begins. Despite the fact that there is nowhere for Maja to disappear to this is exactly what happens. She vanishes. Without a trace. Anders and his wife Cecilia no longer have a child.

The happy life on the island of Domarö in the Roslagens archipelago is over. Only despair and divorce remain.

A few years later Anders returns to the island drunken and depressed, but with a strong determination to live his life. He receives a message that gives him desperate hope: Maja is still in this world, but in a place where he cannot reach her.

A search starts. This leads Anders to the secret past of Domarö towards the dark heart of the sea. He must go through the abyss to find the one he loves. If it really is her.

A moped motor can be heard at night in the woods. Letter boxes are vandalized and houses are set fire to. The sea throws itself towards the cliffs. Someone hates us.

Human Harbour is a story of love, hate and magic. It is the story of the hidden powers that have created the Swedish archipelago.

First published by Ordfront Förlag

Australia, Text Publishing
Brazil, Alaúde, Tordesilhas imprint
Chinese complex characters, Locus Publishing Company
Denmark, Modtryk
Denmark, Rosinante & Co
Finland, Gummerus
Germany,  Lübbe
Italy, Marsilio Editori
Korea, Munhakdongne
Netherlands, Signatuur/ A.W.Bruna
New Zeeland, Text Publishing
Norway, Cappelen Damm
Russia (Audio book), Vimbo
Russia, Azbooka
Spain, Espasa Calpe
UK, Quercus
US, St. Martin´s Press

 

”A MASTERPIECE.”
– Horace Engdahl, former secretary of the Nobel Commitee. (in an interview in the magazine Focus, December 2006)

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Fiction