‘I thought his name was Mika, but ever since that first day when I had misheard him I had called him Ika and he didn’t seem to mind. He told me it meant fish and I thought it suited him. Even before I saw his hands … I had started when I first heard what he called me. Mama. It became his name for me. His very own. It wasn’t that I was a sort of mother to him, I think. No, he told me it meant light. I wasn’t sure if he meant light as in not heavy, or the opposite of darkness. I thought the former, but sometimes I liked to think he meant the latter. Whichever it was, I liked it.’
– The Kindness Of Your Nature by Linda Olsson
Marion Flint lives alone near Kawhia, on the isolated west coast of New Zealand 's North Island . One day she meets a small boy, Ika, lying face down on the empty, rugged beach. An unlikely friendship begins between the Swedish doctor and the silent child with webbed feet and a fear of being touched.
The Kindness Of Your Nature is a beautifully written, sensitive novel that draws you in and explores the many forms love takes – the destructive, the forbidden and, ultimately, the healing
About the author:
Linda Olsson was born in Stockholm , Sweden in 1948. She graduated from the University of Stockholm with a law degree, and worked in law and finance until she left Sweden in 1986. What was intended as a three-year posting to Kenya then became a meandering tour of the world with stops in Singapore , the UK and Japan , until she settled in New Zealand with her family.
Linda's first novel Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs (published elsewhere as Astrid & Veronika) was published in New Zealand in 2005 and became a huge international success, selling hundreds of thousands of copies in Scandinavia, Europe and the United States . It was followed by the heart-breaking and moving Sonata for Miriam, also a best-seller in Scandinavia . Linda currently splits her time every year between New Zealand and Sweden .
No comments:
Post a Comment