Strega A Novel Johanne Lykke Holm Saskia Vogel Translation by Johanne Lykke Holm, Saskia Vogel (translation) instant download after payment.

Nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize

Powerfully inventive & atmospheric, Strega is a modern gothic story of 9 young women on the cusp of inheriting society’s submission to violence, & the age-long myths that uphold it

With little boxes of liquorice, hairbands, & notebooks in her bag, Rafa arrives at the remote Alpine town of Strega to work at the grand Olympic Hotel. There, she & eight other girls receive the stiff uniforms of seasonal workers & are taught to iron, cook, & make the beds by austere matrons. In spare moments between tasks, the girls start to enjoy each other’s company as they pick herbs in the garden, read in the library, & take in the scenery. But when the hotel suddenly fills with people for a raucous party, one of the girls disappears. What follows are deeper revelations about the myths young women are told, what they are raised to expect from the world, the violence they are made to endure, and, ultimately, the question of whether a gentler, more beautiful life is possible.

A monument to long-dead maids & their shrouded knowledge, Johanne Lykke Holm’s luminescent & jagged prose, delivered in Saskia Vogel’s incisive translation, resonates like a spell that keeps exerting its powers long after reading.

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JOHANNE LYKKE HOLM (b. 1987) is an author & translator. Nominated for both the Nordic Council Literature Prize & the European Union Prize for Literature, she is establishing herself among the most promising up-and-coming literary authors in Sweden. She has also translated Yahya Hassan, Josefine Klougart, & Hiromi Itō into Swedish.

SASKIA VOGEL is an author & translator from Los Angeles, now living in Berlin. Permission (2019), her debut novel, was published in 5 languages & longlisted for the Believer Book Award. The Swedish edition was translated by Johanne Lykke Holm. She is Princeton U.’s Fall 2022 Translator in Residence.