Niviaq Korneliussen: Homo sapienne (UK: Crimson; US: Last Night in Nuuk)

The latest addition to my website is Niviaq Korneliussen‘s Homo sapienne (UK: Crimson; US: Last Night in Nuuk). The UK and US editions have different titles, with the UK title coming from one of the character’s favourite songs. In addition the UK title was published 1 November 2018 while the US edition is not published till 15 January 2019. The success of this book – it has already been published in several other languages – is simply because it is set in Greenland, written by a Greenland author and yet is about bisexuality, gender identification, excessive consumption of alcohol, casual sex and continual partying, topics we would not normally associate with Greenland. We follow five characters who struggle with their sexuality, their partners, their gender identification (in one case) and where the next party is to be held. It is certainly lively and colourful and gives us a different view of Greenland from the other Greenland novel on my website (written exactly a hundred years previously) but it is not great literature.

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