A Marian Legend

Original title: En Marialegend

Category: Fiction

A Marian Legend

A young woman is left to die after being subjected to a gang rape by a horde of child soldiers. A museum curator in New York is asked to take over a deceased colleague’s work and becomes increasingly drawn into her life. The 16th-century German artist Lucas Cranach attempts to save a collection of art treasures from destruction during Charles V’s siege of Wittenberg.

In his new book, Niklas Rådström weaves these three seemingly unrelated stories into a gripping and challenging narrative. A Marian Legend is a grand, daring and richly textured novel about how we deal with the evil that exists in the world, and about what we hold to be important in our lives.

A Marian Legend is a fascinating and stylistically incredibly convincing story, where the crucial insight into life’s goals and meaning is constantly thrown back to the reader. It is undoubtedly a high point in Rådström’s authorship. It’s such a beautiful, brave, uninterrupted fascinating novel. And yes, despite all the cruelty encountered by the reader, it becomes paradoxical a praise of what it is to be human. We are cruel, horrendous but we can also love and strive towards what is good.

And what divinely gifted stylist Rådström is, so sure in the tone that you just sit and amaze while the novel slowly reveals its hidden wonders. – Aftonbladet

A Marian Legend is a terrifying book, in the positive sense of the word. It totally knocks me. It forces me through its sublime violence to see the real violence. I’m no longer completely sure where the boundary between them is. – Dagens Nyheter

Even when he writes prose, he is poet. It is a language, crystal clear and beautiful, which reveals the depth of existence. It is a rich novel Rådström has written, at the same time timeless and urgently of our time. – Svenska Dagbladet

Rådström has – once again! – written a beautiful book where the darkness makes the light visible. – Kulturnyheterna, Swedish Television

Niklas Rådström is at the height of his authorship, and it is something of a relief to know that A Marian Legend could not have come from a debutant, but is the result of a life of reading and writing. It’s a novel to read and read again, to remind you that the world as a whole is incomprehensible, but in part it can emit light and hope for the future. – Sydsvenskan

Material available:

English sample translation