MARK TURNER holds on tight for a mesmerising display of Neath-born ragtime virtuosity
Northern blights
JOHN GREEN is fascinated to read a crime thriller written from the point of view of Europe’s northern indigenous people
Sami Reindeer herding, Sweden
[Mats Andersson] 
ALAN MORRISON introduces a UK poet whose despised daytime occupation provides the subject for his writing
MARK TURNER wallows in the virtuosity of Swansea Jazz Festival openers, Simon Spillett and Pete Long
PAUL DONOVAN recommends three new books that explore the human relationship with nature
Doomed adolescents, when the missing person is you, classic whodunnit, and an anti-capitalist eco-thriller
WILL STONE takes a ticket to indie disco heaven, but misses the rarely performed tunes
Stolen
By Ann-Helen Laestadius
Bloomsbury Circus, £18.99
THE SAMI people inhabit the region of Sapmi, encompassing northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia’s Kola peninsula. The region was formerly known as Lapland, and the Sami known in English as Lapps or Laplanders, but these terms are, today, deemed offensive.
This novel tells the story of a girl growing up in a Sami family and the story is told largely by her. Elsa lives in the north of Sweden and is a nine-year-old Sami girl when the narrative begins, maturing into an adult by the end.
Like many of the families here, herding reindeer is the family’s chief means of livelihood, but a malevolent Swedish poacher who lives in the vicinity sees the wild-roaming herds as a source of cheap income for himself. The unfolding conflict between him and the family is at the centre of what becomes a tension-filled crime story even if the only murder victims are the reindeer.
Like so many minority peoples, the Sami find their culture and traditional ways of life challenged and under pressure from modernity, discrimination, and racist attitudes.
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