Stories from Sweden: Balsam Karam: The Singularity

In an unnamed coastal city, home to many refugees, a mother of a displaced family searches for her child, calling her name as she wanders along the cliffside road where her daughter used to work. She searches and searches until, devoid of hope and frantic with grief, she throws herself into the sea, leaving her other children behind. Bearing witness to this suicide is another woman – on a business trip, pregnant with a child she will lose. In the wake of her pain, the second woman remembers other losses – of a language, a country, an identity – when once her family fled a distant war.

‘The Singularity is a novel that appears to have been created from dark matter, elusive, giddying and with an enormous linguistic and narrative density.’ Expressen

Balsam Karam’s attendance at West Cork Literary Festival is supported by the Swedish Arts Council in collaboration with the Embassy of Sweden, UK as part of their Stories From Sweden programme