ÄLSKADE BARN – ELISABETH’S DAUGHTER

By Marianne Fredriksson

Katarina Elg is young and free. She lives by means of her sexuality and loves to be in love, but she is also scared of intimacy and involvement. The most important thing to her is independence – the freedom to be in charge of her own life. When she becomes pregnant, she decides to keep the baby. But when she tells the father of the child, he beats her up. As she wakes up at the hospital, she starts coming to some conclusions. She grew up in a family where her mother was beaten; is violence a part of a person’s genes – both the criminal’s and the victim’s genes? These new reflections bring her closer to her mother. The two women start opening up to one another. Memories are revealed and Katarina can finally understand why her mother remained in a bad relationship.

In Älskade barn (Elisabeth’s Daughter), Marianne Fredriksson continues to explore the themes she created in the classic novels Simon och ekarna (Simon and the Oaks) and Anna, Hanna och Johanna (Hanna’s Daughters) by exploring why we are who we are and how we can change solely through our relationships to others.