Caesaria

WINNER of the Swedish Radio Literature Prize
SHORTLISTED for VI:s Literature Prize
Translated into English by Saskia Vogel
Caesaria is a novel set in nineteenth-century Sweden on a remote country estate, where the girl Caesaria is kept by a renowned obstetrician as his trophy: she was the first baby he delivered by caesarean section. In a dreamlike prose that masterfully blends the elements of storytelling with the history of gynecology, this novel bring to life the story of a girlhood mutilated by incarceration and violence, that raises question of liberation in a cruel and repressive world.
"A magnificent, gothic tale of a doctor who imprisons his patient. Hanna Nordenhök’s new novel Caesaria, set in 19th-century Sweden, is a sharp, haunting fable about the dangers of male violence."
- The Telegraph, 5-star 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, author of Hurricane Season
"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, author of Strega
"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, author of The Firestarters
“A glimpse into the life of a woman who’s been reduced to a curiosity. A quietly raw, poetic study of imprisonment, both imposed and internalized, and the shifting boundaries between care and neglect, human kindness and human cruelty.”
- Marta Balcewicz, author of Big Shadow
"The beautiful and grotesque Gothic tale of a young girl's subjectivity under the medicalizing male gaze. /.../ Indeed, the pleasure of reading this novel is due in large part to the way that Nordenhök uses the scalpel of Caesaria's gaze to carve out psychic spacie in a world where she has been marginalized."
- The Manchester Review