Inlands
No one moves here. This becomes clear long before I pack up the car with all my things, to move here. It leads to countless explanations as to why I’m leaving the city to move more than a thousand kilometers away. Love, that’s the simplest explanation. But it still seems odd that I’m moving. That’s what everyone thinks.
A young woman from Stockholm relocates to her boyfriend’s home town, a small village in the far north of Sweden. But the relationship has ended by the time she arrives at ‘the Place.’
She stays in the village for reasons she herself doesn’t really understand. She gets a job in the local grocery store and rents an apartment. Slowly but surely, she works her way into the Place, and lets the new environment work its way into her. This new society has other, unknown codes. Here you leave the door unlocked, booze at the hotel on Saturdays, drive your car on the ice. But how do you become part of something new?
Elin Willows’ critically acclaimed debut novel is a luminous story about loss and change, written in stripped-down, distinct prose. It examines the tangible mechanics of everyday life, the mentality of a small community and the relationship between freedom and loneliness.
The film adaptation of Inlands premiered in 2020.
info
Year of publication
2018
Original title
Inlandet
Page count
200
Original publisher
Natur & Kultur
Original language of publication
Swedish
Reviews
Göteborgs-Posten
"Elin Willows skilfully portrays the feeling of alienation by allowing time and space to flow together and become part of the narrator's inner life."
M Magasin
"Inlands feels like crawling into hibernation, or like getting the wounds plastered with ice."
Svenska Dagbladet
"It's beautifully harsh and sensitively told, about being still until your legs start wanting to walk again – a truly strong debut."
Arbetarbladet
"A really stylish debut novel."
Västerbottens-Kuriren
"A beautifully written novel with a fine eye for the friction between city and country."
Tidningen Vi
"In the toss between the constant light of summer and the eternal darkness of winter, Willows portrays something so unusual in the coming of age novel as the experience of making a choice and sticking to it."
Dagens Nyheter
"It is in the swaying uncertainty that this style-defining novel finds its rare life."
Vasabladet
"A sensation! Rarely have I encountered such a finished debut work of fiction, with an absolutely unique tone and a language that is so effective that you are irresistibly sucked into the events."
Svenska YLE (on TV)
"Willows demonstrates an exquisite sense of language and a poetic attention to everyday events such as pressing together cardboard boxes or spreading marmalade on a piece of bread."
Awards & Nominations
Nominations
Borås Tidnings Debutantpris (Borås Tidning newspaper - the Newcomer Award)
2018
Författarförbundets Katapultpris (Swedish Authors' Association's Catapult Prize)
2019
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