‘This book is stunning, phenomenal, wow.’
Oneiron
Laura Lindstedt
‘This book is stunning, phenomenal, wow.’ Cecelia Ahern, author of P.S. I Love You
WINNER OF THE FINLANDIA PRIZE
Seven women meet in a white, undefined space seconds after their deaths
Time, as we understand it, has ceased to exist, and all bodily sensations have disappeared. None of the women can remember what happened to them, where they are, or how they got there. They don’t know each other. In turn they try to remember, to piece together the fragments of their lives, their identities, their lost loves, and to pinpoint the moment they left their former lives behind.
Deftly playing with genres from essay to poetry, Oneiron is an astonishing work that explores the question of what follows death and delves deep into the lives and experiences of seven unforgettable women.
Reviews
Cecelia Ahern, author of P.S. I Love You
'Incredibly audacious.'
Chicago Review of Books Most Anticipated Fiction Books of 2018
‘Reflective and full of depth, Finnish author Laura Lindstedt blends in elements of other genres such as poetry and essay to wrestle with some of life’s most difficult questions.’
World Literature Today
‘Super-readable, but buckle up – things get a bit Black Mirror at times.’
Cosmopolitan
'Oneiron seems to rise effortlessly to the best of international literature.'
Finlandia Prize Jury
‘I’ve never read anything like it. I was riveted to the pages as each of the women tries to work out her last memories and tells her individual story... If you sometimes long for a reading experience that takes you out of the usual realm of life and gets you thinking, this book is it. Recommended.’
Marjorie’s World of Books
‘In the sheer diversity of her characters, Lindstedt might be responding to other modern realities: genetic interconnections revealed by DNA tests; global migration and interdependence; the random array of newspaper obituaries that follow a terrorist attack; and the boundary-breaking and community-building properties of social media, two years before the rise of the #MeToo movement.’
Public Books
‘Oneiron is one of those books that stunned me into silence at the end.’
Lark Benobi
'Oneiron is literally a fabulous work. A triumph of the art of the novel.'
Dagbladet, Norway
‘A spectacular novel about life after death...Laura Lindstedt embodies with breathtaking imagination the idea that we are all equal in the face of death...[weaving] her unlikely story with the finest of writers' hands.'
Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)
'Oneiron is ambitious and lush...a vital, critically-acclaimed novel.'
Stavanger Aftenblad (Norway)
'A prize-worthy, magnificent meditation on the afterlife with a suggestive warmth and forgiveness towards death in this frank portrait of seven women told with humour and a strong desire for storytelling.'
Dagens Nyheter (Sweden)
Laura Lindstedt
Laura Lindstedt burst onto the Finnish literary scene in 2007 with her debut novel Scissors, which earned her a nomination for the Finlandia Prize, the country’s most prestigious literary honour. Lindstedt’s second novel Oneiron has continued Lindstedt’s critical success, earning her the 2015 Finlandia Prize. She lives in Helsinki.
Author page
