The Moon Knows Not ( 1989, 2015)

Kristian’s grandmother has told him about the color of one of the lunar seas. Kristian knows that that was where she years ago found a pirate ship that she sailed back to earth. That’s just one of the secrets that Kristian shares with his grandmother.

At the same time, Kristian knows that his grandmother is getting older and that one day she will die. He also knows that he himself will grow up and out of childhood. Kristian and his grandmother are inevitably slipping away from one another.

But the secrets they share still bind them together. The secrets inhabit the threshold between dreams and everyday life, and they help Kristian find comfort on both sides of that boundary. Kristian knows that one day his grandmother will be gone, but will she have time to teach him all that the moon knows not?

Niklas Rådström, one of the greatest poets of his generation, has written a novel with the rare ability of making the reader feel at once happy and sad, lonely and joyous. The Moon Knows Not is a story about a boy’s path to the realization that all will ultimately be lost.