TÄNKARENS TESTAMENT – THE THINKER’S TESTIMONY
By Jessica Schiefauer
IN A TIME of transition between medieval fears of the devil and rational science, Jessica Schiefauer takes the reader on an adventurous journey through Europe in this 17th-century road novel. We follow a thinker who questioned everything – even when it was punishable by death – driven by the conviction that everything can be examined and controlled. With one exception: emotions and the daughter he unexpectedly brings into the world. In a voracious pursuit of knowledge about the connection between body and soul and the mechanical human, he has experiences and meets people who repeatedly propel his thoughts in new directions. By the end of the journey, when he summarises his work, the question remains where his striving has led him and at what cost.
AUGUST-PRIZE WINNING Jessica Schiefauer writes with historical authenticity and vibrant playfulness, in a sensuous prose that at times takes the reader’s breath away.
ABOUT THE BOOK
First published by Romanus & Selling, Sweden 2024
RIGHTS SOLD TO
Sweden, Romanus & Selling
AWARDS
Nominated to the Swedish Radio Novel Prize, 2025
REVIEWS
[Schiefauer’s] new novel, in any case, plays in a league far above most of the books from the year 2024. The Thinkers Testimony is an incredibly rich, verbose, and powerful story that both fascinates and deeply repels at the same time. As a reader, one cannot help but be impressed by Schiefauer’s beautiful, precise language, admire the breadth of her research and portrayal of contemporary society, and, above all, be floored by the sheer scope of the project.
– Alingsås Tidning
The language is prosaic and easy to read, while the story is vividly imaginative. Schiefauer has written a page-turner that offers entertaining reading. Simply a very good book.
– BTJ
This is where the novel aims to take us – to the point where reason and the razor of doubt become that of the executioner. When does an honest pursuit of knowledge turn monstrous? Is there even such a boundary?
– Dagens Nyheter
As delightfully erudite as it is deeply personal – while at the same time being a tale of a metal girl – a story that indeed has similarities to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. […] A thought-provoking novel. I was captivated.
– Västerbottens-Kuriren
BOOKS
Fiction
