An old hunter stares out of the window at the tiny marzipan-green caravan he has spotted near the forest. It’s winter, gray lighting. Then he sees a wolf. He has seen wolves before, he has shot wolves, but this time he sees the wolf. Life will never be the same. One of the red threads through Kerstin Ekman’s writing is clearly green. At least in the books I have read; I became hooked on this stand-alone authorship many books after the crime debut in 1959. In “Løpe ulv” the close relationship with nature is intensified. There is something acute about history. Ulf and forest Ulf (!) has been a hunter since he shot his first hare as a 12-year-old. Based in Hälsingland, he is a highly respected leader of a hunting team. Before he retired, he was employed in the forest management where he did a good job. But the year he turns 70, he gets a problem with his heart, in a double sense: We’re talking angina and an uneasiness about his life’s work. Logging would have been the thing. Large machines tore everything up by the roots, chemicals prevented the deciduous forest from coming up again, it was the spruce forest that paid off. How could he be so blind? Both the “father” and the grandfather ran mixed logging and had multi-age forests. He thought he himself was on the side of the future, or did he really think so? Wolf and wolf And then there is the wolf. In the hunting team, he is “a damn beast” who kills sheep. But now Ulf has seen the wolf and named him “Høgbein”. The wolf is at home in the forest. He himself is an intruder when he sits in the caravan, no matter how much he has paper that he is a forest owner. Ulf pulls out his hunting diaries and sees that he only describes the animals as prey. Ulf is in crisis. His wife Inga looks at him with an expression “that I have only seen in mothers”. They share a common concern that the summer is too hot and there are too many forest fires. Crime riddles and other knots “Løpe ulv” is a simple story about self-examination. But Ekman weaves an intricate web of difficult questions and dilemmas into this weasel, condensed novel into less than two hundred pages. The easiest is actually the crime mystery that comes in from the sidelines far out in the book. Ekman connoisseurs will know that the author constantly returns to the genre in which she debuted. It gets worse when wolves and humans threaten each other’s livelihood. The author portions out his story so that it is engaging from the first to the last page. Ekman! It is good, it is very good. But what makes Kerstin Ekman a truly great author is primarily about two things: The first is her knowledge of nature. Ekman has great insight into plants and animals, seasons and cycles. The reader sees it: The wolf that pisses in the snow in winter. The river that foams yellow in spring. The second is language, which is also specific about the human world. When the wise Inga hears the man say “all I have killed” instead of “all I have shot”, she understands what is going on with the tight-lipped old man. The author portions out enough information but never too much. Ekman is no romantic. Sheep and wolves, hunter and prey, forest and forest management: there must be a balance. The author points discreetly towards knowledge and the ability to empathize. It is not surprising that “Løpe ulv” has been nominated for the Nordic Council’s literature prize. I can’t think of the last time I read such an absorbing novel about climate and the environment. news reviewer Photo: Aschehoug Title: “Løpe ulv” Author: Kerstin Ekman Genre: Novel Translator: Bodil Engen Publisher: Aschehoug Number of pages: 176 Hi! I am chief critic of fiction at news. Feel free to read my book reviews of “Våkenetter” by Christine Nitter, “Matrix” by Lauren Groff or “Invictus” by Sunniva Lye Axelsen.
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