The Bear Woman

Feminist autofiction from one of Sweden’s blazing talents.

Blending autofiction and essay, The Bear Woman is a journey of feminism and literary

detective work spanning centuries and continents. In the 1540s, a young

French noblewoman, Marguerite de la Rocque, was abandoned on an island in

the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with her maidservant and her lover. In present-day

Stockholm, an author and mother becomes captivated by the image of Marguerite

sheltered in a dark cave after her companions have died.

This image soon becomes an obsession. She must find out the real story of the

woman she calls the Bear Woman. But so much in this history is written so as to

gloss over male violence. And the maps and other sources she consults are at

times undecipherable.

Karolina Ramqvist explores what it means to write history–and to live it.

Karolina Ramqvist writes with frosty precision the kind of literature that is unforgettable. Her portraits of women hit deep into bone and marrow. -Dorthe Nors

Ramqvist’s acute rendering of embodied sensual experience combined with her evocation of her double character’s increasingly desperate circumstances create a story of high tension, startling insights, and lasting resonance. -Siri Hustvedt

One of my favorite discoveries from this year. -Samanta Schweblin

The deeply personal journey of a writer, surprising and illuminating, and for me, familiar in the most reassuring way as she loses herself in this compelling story - Esther Freud, author of Hideous Kinky