CANCELLED Meet the author Mikael Niemi: To Cook a Bear

Mikael Niemi in conversation with his publisher, Raphaëlle Liebaert, head of La Cosmopolite, the foreign literature collection at Éditions Stock.
A bear

Born in 1959 in Tornedalen, a county in northern Sweden, Mikael Niemi is a novelist and poet in the tradition of his literary forebears, the storytellers PO Enquist and Torgny Lindgren. In 2000 he earned international acclaim with his first novel Populärmusik från Vittula (Popular Music from Vittula, French title Le goût du baiser d’un garçon), which sold over a million copies and won the August Prize, Sweden’s most prestigious literary price.
Following in the footsteps of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, Mikael Niemi’s latest novel To Cook a Bear is at once a detective novel, a depiction of nineteenth-century rural Swedish society, and a deeply moving love story, all conveyed in vivid, lyrical language.
The year is 1852, in the countryside of the Far North of Sweden. Lars Levi Læstadius, a colourful botanist and pastor in the little village of Kengis, struggles to fight against the atheism and alcoholism of his parishioners. When a servant girl is found dead in the forest, the chief of police quickly blames a bear. Based on his intuition and scientific knowledge, Læstadius doesn’t believe this can be true. When a second girl vanishes, the pastor decides to investigate, even if it means getting into trouble with the local authorities.

Useful information – CANCELLED EVENT

  • Admission free, advance booking not required.
  • The event will be held in the garden. If case of rain, it will be held in the auditorium.
  • Discussion in French (parts in Swedish will be translated consecutively into French)
  • To ensure that everybody is protected and that events run smoothly, our team is implementing a number of hygiene and safety measures. Please read the barrier gestures by clicking here.
  • Book translated into French by Marina and Françoise Heide.

Event organised in collaboration with Editions Stock.

Institut suédois 50 years in 2021! This event forms part of our anniversary programme dedicated to the theme of Friendship. Click here to learn more.