A Fortune Foretold

The author returns to the girl she was, from her birth in 1940 to the edge of adulthood, in sharp, emotional scenes. A fortune-teller's words to a favourite aunt run through the book, and the girl waits eagerly to see whether they will come true. The family keeps moving, from Stockholm's outskirts to America and on to Lund. She escapes into books, which name things she cannot otherwise grasp, and wonders about being female, about kin and about how different people can be. Her father is a mathematician, her mother a musician; they are opposites, they quarrel, and she adores them both. Gradually she realises that her upbringing rests on a falsehood, and she must shield herself and her two little sisters as the household becomes a battleground.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

266 pages in the original

Genres

Autofiction, Coming of age, Family (assigned by AI)

Set in

Sweden, United States, 1940–1960

First published

2015 by Norstedts

Author's age

75 when first published

ISBN

9789113059549 (original)

9781590518304 (Other Press, United States)