Available Formats
Hardback
Published: 12th December 2023
Paperback
Published: 31st October 2023
Paperback
Published: 10th September 2024
The Kindness
By (Author) John Ajvide Lindqvist
Translated by Marlaine Delargy
Quercus Publishing
riverrun
12th December 2023
3rd August 2023
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Fiction in translation
Narrative theme: Social issues
839.738
Hardback
816
Width 164mm, Height 238mm, Spine 70mm
1120g
A shipping container is mysteriously dumped in the Swedish port town of Norrtalje. Due to their ignorance of its ownership it isn't until a week has passed that the authorities can have it forced open. There the remains of twenty eight refugees are found, a situation of unrelenting horror. Not only that; a black sludge pours out which contaminates the river and is the cause of a new, sickening dread that affects Norrtalje's inhabitants, causing a lack of trust, aggression, violence. It seems like an end to Kindness.
Six characters are at the centre of this extraordinary novel, six people in search of love and connection, whose extraordinary qualities will confront the metaphysical illness consuming their town. 'As Lindqvist has increasingly devoted himself to the subtle plumbing of the human soul he has become a distinctive and urgent voice in contemporary literature' - Svenska DagbladetJohn Ajvide Lindqvist is a Swedish author, born in 1968. He grew up in Blackeberg, a suburb of Stockholm. He wanted to become something awful and fantastic. First he became a conjurer and came in second in the Nordic card trick championship. Then he was a stand-up comedian for twelve years, before writing Let the Right One In. That novel became a phenomenal international bestseller and was made into a film and a West End play, both called Let Me In. His books are published in twenty-nine countries worldwide.