A poignant and darkly satirical portrait of aging, memory and multi-generational care from the first Faroese writer to appear in English.
I am a woman in my early sixties. At a stage between lateness and immaturity. I am no longer the working woman, the mother, the housewife, the lover who does it all...now I am a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother. But I still have to meet all the requirements imposed on me.Thus begins Solrunn Mikkelsen's tender and sarcastic exploration of what she sees as the strange final stage of life's journey. Her children have grown up and left home, and she now faces a stage that she has been looking forward to for many years - a stage in which she no longer needs anyone or anything.But now, as her mother's health deteriorates, she finds herself recalling her childhood memories, family chants, and folk songs, revealing a life filled with love, duty, dread, and regret. She cares for her mother amidst the strict rhythms of Faroese life, waiting for a new nursing home that never arrives, and confronting the reality of being part of the “army of women” who inherit care.In her grief and her special farewell to her mother lies also a wonderful reflection on life, as translator Marita Thomsen says in her conclusion, “in its humble earthly glory.” On the Other Side of March is a poetic portrait of the care and invisible work of motherhood, a tribute to caretakers across generations, as well as to the rich oral traditions of song and storytelling that kept the Faroese language alive centuries before its standard written form.This is the first work by Michelsen - a best-selling author of novels, short stories, poetry and children's literature - to be published in English.
