With their innovative new novels, Linnea Axelsson and Alexis Wright explore the legacy of colonialism across the globe.

Axelsson’s Ædnan, translated by Saski Vogel, is a multigenerational novel-in-verse about two Sámi families and their quest to stay together across a century of migration, violence, and colonial trauma. Weaving together the voices of half a dozen characters, Ædnan is a powerful reminder of how durable language can be, even when it is borrowed, especially when it has to hold what no longer remains.

Wright’s Praiseworthy is a phantasmagorical epic following one family contending with interconnected crises amidst a mysterious cloud encroaching on their Northern Australian town, heralding both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors. A cry of outrage against oppression and disadvantage and a fable for the end of days, Praiseworthy pushes allegory and language to its limit.

Pulitzer finalist Tommy Orange (There There) will moderate a conversation between Axelsson, Wright, and Vogel about their novels; the past, present, and future of indigeneity and colonialism; and writing across time, place, and form.

Axelsson, Vogel, and Orange will appear in-person at the Center for Architecture + Design, 140 Sutter Street, San Francisco (1:00 pm PT) with Wright joining remotely. The event will be live-streamed with an in-person audience at The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, NY and The London Library in London, UK.

About The International Library

Join the American Library in Paris, the Center for the Art of Translation, and The Center for Fiction for conversations across time, place, culture, and literary tradition, with live audiences in San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Paris.