A event on Monday 28th October. The event starts at 19:00.
*Ticket (£6) includes refreshments & 10% off the author's book. 20 capacity, seated & accessible. Some tickets are allocated as PWYC starting at £0.00: please select this option if you need to do so*
For our first fiction event, we are delighted to welcome Swedish writer & translator Hanna Nordenhök to EBB, in conversation with Cat Dickie from Bristol's premier indie subscription service, Good Book Club. They will discuss Hanna's novel *Caesaria*, recently translated by Saskia Vogel and published by Heloise Press, an independent publisher specialising in contemporary female narrative. The reading & discussion will be followed by audience Q&A and signing.
A Gothic tale for late October, in *Caesaria* Hanna Nordenhök digs into the medical past, examining the history of gynaecological violence & helping us to understand the origins of the gender health gap that persists today: a true horror story for Halloween.
In 19th-century Sweden, gynaecology is an emerging discipline. The female body appears as a cryptic landscape to be intruded, invaded, and controlled. A baby is carved out from her mother's body by a renowned obstetrician, who decides to keep her as his own Creation. He names her Caesaria. Under constant supervision, she will live a dollhouse existence in the doctor's mansion, subject to systems of control and punishment, unaware of the outside world, to eventually reach an eerie finale.
On *Caesaria*:
"[the book] enacts the irrational violence that simmers beneath the 'objective' male scientific gaze, which sees women's bodies as unexplored landscapes to be mapped and dominated."
-- Manchester Review
"A novel as beautiful as it is unsettling. Hanna Nordenhök’s prose combines with singular mastery the density of poetry with the feverish atmosphere of a gothic tale."
--Fernanda Melchor
"I was astounded by "Caesaria". It's such a captivating immersive read, like falling down a rabbit hole of shifting impressions, small revelations and the unravelling of time itself. I've never read anything quite like this. Every sentence is a poem. The language is both furious and careful. The characters are grotesque and gorgeous. It's a hall of mirrors bound up in a book."
--Jan Carson
"Nordenhök's locked up mansion is a disciplinary system of supervision and punishment, a claustrophobic spectacle where death and disaster are indisputable components in the condition of being a girl. "Caesaria" is simply wonderful!"
--Johanne Lykke Holm
Hanna is also an important translator of Mexican literature into Swedish, and given our Latin American connections we'll presumably be unable to resist asking her about this connection, too!
Hanna Nordenhök (Malmo, 1977) has been awarded several major literary honors for her work, both as novelist, poet and essayist. Her novel "Caesaria"
(2020) scooped Swedish Radio’s Literary Prize and was shortlisted for Vi’s Literature Prize. Nordenhök also works as a translator from the Spanish and has been praised for her translations of Fernanda Melchor, Andrea Abreu and Alia Trabucco Zerán. Her last novel "Wonderland" (2023) was listed among the Best Books of the Year in Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen, Borås Tidning, Hufvudstadsbladet and Magasinet ETC, as well as shortlisted for Vi's Literature Prize.
Cat Dickie is founder of Good Book Club, a feminist book subscription that aims to introduce its members to brilliant new literary fiction from around the world. She lives in Bristol with her partner and two black cats.
Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio)
For our first fiction event, we are delighted to welcome Swedish writer & translator Hanna Nordenhök to EBB, in conversation with Cat Dickie from Bristol's premier indie subscription service, Good Book Club. They will discuss Hanna's novel *Caesaria*, recently translated by Saskia Vogel and published by Heloise Press, an independent publisher specialising in contemporary female narrative. The reading & discussion will be followed by audience Q&A and signing.
A Gothic tale for late October, in *Caesaria* Hanna Nordenhök digs into the medical past, examining the history of gynaecological violence & helping us to understand the origins of the gender health gap that persists today: a true horror story for Halloween.
In 19th-century Sweden, gynaecology is an emerging discipline. The female body appears as a cryptic landscape to be intruded, invaded, and controlled. A baby is carved out from her mother's body by a renowned obstetrician, who decides to keep her as his own Creation. He names her Caesaria. Under constant supervision, she will live a dollhouse existence in the doctor's mansion, subject to systems of control and punishment, unaware of the outside world, to eventually reach an eerie finale.
On *Caesaria*:
"[the book] enacts the irrational violence that simmers beneath the 'objective' male scientific gaze, which sees women's bodies as unexplored landscapes to be mapped and dominated."
-- Manchester Review
"A novel as beautiful as it is unsettling. Hanna Nordenhök’s prose combines with singular mastery the density of poetry with the feverish atmosphere of a gothic tale."
--Fernanda Melchor
"I was astounded by "Caesaria". It's such a captivating immersive read, like falling down a rabbit hole of shifting impressions, small revelations and the unravelling of time itself. I've never read anything quite like this. Every sentence is a poem. The language is both furious and careful. The characters are grotesque and gorgeous. It's a hall of mirrors bound up in a book."
--Jan Carson
"Nordenhök's locked up mansion is a disciplinary system of supervision and punishment, a claustrophobic spectacle where death and disaster are indisputable components in the condition of being a girl. "Caesaria" is simply wonderful!"
--Johanne Lykke Holm
Hanna is also an important translator of Mexican literature into Swedish, and given our Latin American connections we'll presumably be unable to resist asking her about this connection, too!
Hanna Nordenhök (Malmo, 1977) has been awarded several major literary honors for her work, both as novelist, poet and essayist. Her novel "Caesaria"
(2020) scooped Swedish Radio’s Literary Prize and was shortlisted for Vi’s Literature Prize. Nordenhök also works as a translator from the Spanish and has been praised for her translations of Fernanda Melchor, Andrea Abreu and Alia Trabucco Zerán. Her last novel "Wonderland" (2023) was listed among the Best Books of the Year in Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen, Borås Tidning, Hufvudstadsbladet and Magasinet ETC, as well as shortlisted for Vi's Literature Prize.
Cat Dickie is founder of Good Book Club, a feminist book subscription that aims to introduce its members to brilliant new literary fiction from around the world. She lives in Bristol with her partner and two black cats.
Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio)
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