Tag: Chitambo

Norvik’s designer Essi Viitanen gives us a guided tour through the process of designing a cover for Chitambo. 

The process of designing a cover for Chitambo began with reading the book and discussing the material with Sarah Death, the translator of the novel. Sometimes Norvik Press book covers have original illustrations but for Chitambo’s cover we thought it best to look for an existing image. The basic requirements for the image are high resolution (at least 300dpi for printing) and suitable space for the typography: book title and names of the author and translator. If possible, it is also preferable the image is public domain and free to use.

I began by looking for photographs that might work thematically or capture a significant detail of the novel. Whilst reading the book one paragraph had caught my eye: ‘If I close my eyes, I see a blue horizon and dazzling white sails, always the same vision, and I do not know where it comes from.’ With this in mind I headed to Unsplash, an excellent source for free public domain photographs, in search of images.

Continue reading Finding a look for Vega Maria

In many countries, the lockdown continues. We are thinking of you all. To help keep spirits high, here is taster four.

It is the third week of our series of blogs focusing on the recent publication of Chitambo by Hagar Olsson, translated by Sarah Death – which means it is time for another extract! Relax with taster three.

This week we continue our celebration of the publication of Chitambo by Hagar Olsson, translated by Sarah Death, with the second extract in our series of lockdown reading – read taster two.

Looking for some reading to make lockdown life a little more bearable? We have just published Hagar Olsson’s Chitambo, translated by Sarah Death – and you can read taster one today!

From birth, Vega Maria Dreary is caught in a vice of conflicting parental expectations. Her father brings her up to admire history’s heroic male adventurers, while her mother channels her towards housework and conformity. But when puberty comes, paternal half-promises evaporate and Vega has to fight her own way out of the domestic cage. In a time of revolution and civil war in early twentieth-century Finland, she finds it hard to identify her own calling, alighting first on the cause of feminism but feeling her way towards a wider humanitarian mission.

The adult Vega looks back on her younger self with ironic humour, but is in despair about the end of a rocky relationship with her beloved Ta, now transformed by his wartime experiences. She recovers and opts to emulate her childhood hero Livingstone, beating new paths through her own psychological jungle.

A kaleidoscope of changing roles for Vega whirls us through this compelling modernist novel, multi-layered but eminently accessible, with a wonderful feel for language, and vibrant evocations of an era and a place. Considered by many to be Hagar Olsson’s best novel, Chitambo is now available in English for the first time.