The River

“We all have one thing in common–we’re on the road, and we’re headed west.”

September 1944. Tens of thousands of people are abandoning their homes to escape the destruction left in the wake of the Lapland War. A young girl whose family has been devastated by the conflict makes her way through this landscape, leading the cows from her home farm all the way.

The River is a captivating novel about migration, refugee camps, and the river that marks the boundary between life and death for people who have left their homes behind. It is a year in the life of a girl from a tiny village, a story about roads that become trails, about nature, and about her search for her mother. 

Liksom’s narrative makes the very mud sing.