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Antiquity Hanna Johansson

Antiquity By Hanna Johansson

Antiquity by Hanna Johansson


$26.49
Condition - Like New
Only 1 left

Antiquity Summary

Antiquity by Hanna Johansson

Elegant, slippery, and provocative, Antiquity is a queer Lolita story by prize-winning Swedish author Hanna Johansson a story of desire, power, obsession, observation, and taboo.

Antiquity follows its unnamed narrator, a lonely woman in her thirties who becomes enamoured of a chic older artist, Helena, after interviewing her for a magazine. Helena invites the narrator to join her in the Greek city of Ermoupoli where she summers with her teenage daughter Olga. At first an object of jealousy, Olga morphs into an object of desire as the pull of Helena is transposed onto her daughter and the prospect of becoming someones first, if perverse, lover.

With echoes of Death in Venice, Call Me by Your Name, The Lover, and Lolita, but wholly original and contemporary, Antiquity probes the depths of memory, power, and the narratives that arrange our experience of the world.

Antiquity Reviews

Entrancing and calamitous, Antiquity dreams deeply into the shadows of desire and obsession. A precise and mysterious spell of a book.

-- Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch

In Antiquity, Hanna Johansson probes the most forbidden recesses of desire, ageing, and memory in sentences as lucent and incisive as shards of glass. Wily, mesmeric, and utterly disarming, this fabulously translated novel held me captive from the very first page, and its questions and images will linger in my blood for a long time. Rarely have I felt so transported and beguiled by a book, let alone a debut. Dont miss it.

-- Maggie Millner, author of Couplets: a love story

A wonderful novel written with the menacing elegance of a cat burglar working in the shadows and at great heights.

-- Catherine Lacey, author of Biography of X

Antiquity could have been a different, equally impressive novel, exploring its territories queer familial and erotic longing, projection, the spectral lines of transgression in the protective gear its sharp observations, meticulous intelligence, and gorgeous sentences would provide. Instead, what Hanna Johansson offers in her electric, unsettling debut refuses all protection and dares the reader to do the same. Kira Josefssons translation is its own marvel, the language brimming with just-kept chaos until the keepings no longer possible, the feelings just too big. I wont forget this book or its aftermath: a confusion, a consternation, an explanation that is not an explanation, a story open at both ends.

-- Anna Moschovakis, author of Participation

About Hanna Johansson

Hanna Johansson began her writing career as a critic and essayist covering topics like fashion, literature, art, and performance, and currently works as the art editor at the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. Her debut novel, Antiquity, was awarded the Katapultpriset Prize in 2021. Kira Josefsson is a writer and translator working between English and Swedish. She is the recipient of grants from the PEN/Heim Translation Fund and the Swedish Arts Council. She writes about the intersection of politics, literature, and identity for both Swedish and English-language publications.

Additional information

GOR013895393
9781915590596
1915590590
Antiquity by Hanna Johansson
Used - Like New
Paperback
Scribe Publications
2024-07-18
224
Joint winner of The Catapult Prize for best Swedish fiction debut 2021 (Sweden) Short-listed for The Boras Daily Newspaper Debut Award 2021 (Sweden)
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
The book has been read, but looks new. The book cover has no visible wear, and the dust jacket is included if applicable. No missing or damaged pages, no tears, possible very minimal creasing, no underlining or highlighting of text, and no writing in the margins

Customer Reviews - Antiquity