Valerie: or, The Faculty of Dreams: A Novel

A fever dream of a novel―strangely funny, entirely unconventional―Valerie conjures the life, mind, and art of American firebrand Valerie Solanas
In April 1988, Valerie Solanas―the writer, radical feminist, author of the SCUM Manifesto and would-be assassin of Andy Warhol―was discovered dead at fifty-two in her hotel room, in a grimy corner of San Francisco, alone, penniless, and surrounded by the typed pages of her last writings. 
In Valerie, a nameless narrator revisits the room where Solanas died, the courtroom where she was tried and convicted of attempting to murder Andy Warhol, the Georgia wastelands where she spent her childhood and was repeatedly raped by her father and beaten by her alcoholic grandfather, and the mental hospitals where she was shut away. 
A leading feminist in Sweden and one of the most acclaimed writers in Scandinavia, Sara Stridsberg here blurs the boundaries between history and fiction, self-making and storytelling, madness and art, love and tragedy. Through imagined conversations and monologues, reminiscences and rantings, she reconstructs this most intriguing and enigmatic of women, reaching back in time to amplify her voice and bring her powerful, heartbreaking story into new light.

Literature & Fiction

Stridsberg, Sara

Literary

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

The international star Sara Stridsberg returns with The Antarctica of Love, an unnamed woman's tale of her murder, her brief life, and the world that moves on after she left it They say you die three times. The first time for me was when my heart stopped beating beneath his hands by the lake, and the second was when what was left of me was lowered into the ground in front of Ivan and Raksha at Bromma Church. The third time will be the last time my name is spoken on earth. She was a neglected child, an unreliable mother, a sex worker, a drug user--and then, like so many, a nameless victim of a violent crime. But first she was a human being, a full, complicated person, and she insists that we know her fully as she tells her story from beyond the grave. We witness her short life, the harrowing murder that ended it, and her grief over the loved ones she has left behind. We see her parents struggle with guilt and loss. We watch her children grow up in adopted families and patch together imperfect lives. We feel her dreams, fears, and passions. And still we will never know her name. A heartrending novel of life after death, Sara Stridsberg's The Antarctica of Love is an unflinching testament of a woman on the margins, a tale of family lost and found, a report of a murder in the voice of the victim, and a story that brims with unexpected tenderness and hope.

The Antarctica of Love: A Novel

Gravity of Love

Genre Fiction

MacLehose Press

A fever dream of a novel―strangely funny, entirely unconventional―Valerie conjures the life, mind, and art of American firebrand Valerie Solanas\nIn April 1988, Valerie Solanas―the writer, radical feminist, author of the SCUM Manifesto and would-be assassin of Andy Warhol―was discovered dead at fifty-two in her hotel room, in a grimy corner of San Francisco, alone, penniless, and surrounded by the typed pages of her last writings.\nIn Valerie, a nameless narrator revisits the room where Solanas died, the courtroom where she was tried and convicted of attempting to murder Andy Warhol, the Georgia wastelands where she spent her childhood and was repeatedly raped by her father and beaten by her alcoholic grandfather, and the mental hospitals where she was shut away.\nA leading feminist in Sweden and one of the most acclaimed writers in Scandinavia, Sara Stridsberg here blurs the boundaries between history and fiction, self-making and storytelling, madness and art, love and tragedy. Through imagined conversations and monologues, reminiscences and rantings, she reconstructs this most intriguing and enigmatic of women, reaching back in time to amplify her voice and bring her powerful, heartbreaking story into new light.

Picador

The international star Sara Stridsberg returns with The Antarctica of Love, an unnamed woman's tale of her murder, her brief life, and the world that moves on after she left it. [Stridsberg] writes with chilling poise." --Antonia Hitchens, The New York Times Book Review They say you die three times. The first time for me was when my heart stopped beating beneath his hands by the lake, and the second was when what was left of me was lowered into the ground in front of Ivan and Raksha at Bromma Church. The third time will be the last time my name is spoken on earth. She was a neglected child, an unreliable mother, a sex worker, a drug user--and then, like so many, a nameless victim of a violent crime. But first she was a human being, a full, complicated person, and she insists that we know her fully as she tells her story from beyond the grave. We witness her short life, the harrowing murder that ended it, and her grief over the loved ones she has left behind. We see her parents struggle with guilt and loss. We watch her children grow up in adopted families and patch together imperfect lives. We feel her dreams, fears, and passions. And still we will never know her name. A heartrending novel of life after death, Sara Stridsberg's The Antarctica of Love is an unflinching testament of a woman on the margins, a tale of family lost and found, a report of a murder in the voice of the victim, and a story that brims with unexpected tenderness and hope.

Antarctica of Love

"Compassionate and complex" Financial Times\n"Stridsberg writes with chilling poise" New York Times\n"A haunting portrait of the starkest meanings of love and family. Stridsberg's literary talent left me awestruck" KATE REED PETTY, author of True Story\n**A Financial Times Book of the Year 2021**\nThey say you die three times. 
The first time for me was when my heart stopped beating beneath his hands by the lake. 
The second was when what was left of me was lowered into the ground in front of Ivan and Raksha at Bromma Church. 
The third will be the last time my name is spoken on earth.\nInni lives her life on the margins, but it is a life that is full and complex, filled with different shades of dark and light... Until she is brutally murdered one summer's day, on a lake shore at the heart of a distant, rain-washed forest.\nOn the surface, this is the story of the moment her life is violently extinguished - a moment that will never end, not ever - but it is also about the time before, and about the lives that carry on afterwards. It's about her children, her parents, her childhood of neglect, her volatile adolescence, and the chain of choices, tragedies and accidents that lead her to a life on the streets and take her into the wrong crowd, the wrong places and, finally, the wrong car with the wrong person.\nSara Stridsberg's new novel is about absolute vulnerability, brutality and isolation. At times disturbing, this is a devastating story of unexpected love, tenderness and light in the total darkness.\nTranslated from Swedish by Deborah Bragan-Turner

The Antarctica of Love

Contemporary

We Go to the Park: A Picture Book

Teen & Young Adult

Unruly/Enchanted Lion

The award-winning and beautiful story of a child coping with her father's absence. The book tackles a difficult subject with great tenderness, validating a child's experience of a parent suffering from depression. Zoe's dad isn't home. She still sees him in photographs, laughing and playing tennis, but for now she can only visit him in a building where everyone looks sad and the walls are an ugly pink colour. Some days Zoe's dad is too sad to see her, but she goes to the hospital anyway. While waiting she meets Sabina who invites her to swim across the world. Zoe's not sure it's possible, but Sabina tells her, 'A girl can do everything she wants.'

The Summer of Diving

Children's Books

Growing Up & Facts of Life

Triangle Square

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stridsberg, Sara. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Stridsberg, Sara

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stridsberg, Sara. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Valerie: or, The Faculty of Dreams: A Novel

The Antarctica of Love: A Novel

Gravity of Love

Valerie: or, The Faculty of Dreams: A Novel

Antarctica of Love

The Antarctica of Love

We Go to the Park: A Picture Book

The Summer of Diving