The Traveller is the third part in Susanna Alakoski’s critically acclaimed series that follows four generations of women in the same family throughout the 20th century. When Kathrine’s grandmother grew up, wars followed one another. Small, simple cotton mills evolved into large textile conglomerates. Kathrine’s mother, Greta, moved to Sweden, ended up in Skellefteå, and witnessed the heyday of the textile industry.
“Alakoski writes the modern working-class novel, with humor, concise scenes, a freedom from lecture and ideology, a subtlety in details and dialogue that makes the reading pleasant and varied. […] Impressive expertise, accurate markers of time and place, a narrative pace and a subject that you take to heart.”
– Norrbottens-Kuriren“Nuanced about the textile industry and women’s lives.”
– Västerbottens-Kuriren“There is a combination of both flight and gravity in Susanna Alakoski’s writing that I greatly appreciate. Both the characters and the settings become real and another important chapter of women’s history is now on paper. This is brilliant fact-based fiction. Can it get any better?”
– Pekka Heino
AS THE SEVENTIES turn into the eighties, Kathrine attends high school and knows at least one thing: she won’t work with textiles. Not only because a new era is here—Algots Nord is heading for bankruptcy along with large parts of the rest of the textile industry—but also because there is another world out there beyond that of her mother and grandmother. She longs to escape, not only from the confined life of the small town but also from her maternal heritage, Finland, and the clothing industry. She just doesn’t know where to go or how.
KATHRINE EMBARKS ON a planless journey that takes her to the city of Gothenburg and further out into Europe and the world.
