Hanna's Daughters

This a brilliant book which I found extremely hard to put down and I have re-read it many times. It gives such a vivid picture of life in Sweden in the last century particularly in regard to women. The author brings the characters to life so brilliantly that you do find it very easy to get drawn into the story. I even bought the Swedish copy when I was in Stockholm.


A moving and compelling read.   July 19, 2001
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Hanna's daughters tells the stories of three generations of women in the same Swedish family. As Johanna lies dying in an geriatrics' hospital, her daughter Anna tries to make contact with her, to resolve her own questions about the past, and to understand her mother's life - questions she never thought to ask before it was too late. Once launched on this voyage of discovery, she also starts to wonder about her grandmother Hanna, about whom she knows almost nothing, in spite of the fact that her grandmother was alive well into her own young adulthood. In the course of the book, the lives of the three women are unfolded for the reader, and gradually bit by bit for Anna. The action moves from the poor Swedish farming areas on the Noorwegian border in the middle of the nineteenth century to Goteborg in the 1980's. To tell more would risk giving the plot away too much. Suffice to say that two peoples memories of the same event are never the same, and that the events of the past can cast long shadows. A moving and compelling book from a talented story teller and weaver of images.


There is so much to this book   April 25, 2000
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

When I finished this book I immediately wanted to begin reading it again. It gives a fascinating glimpse of both daily life and emotional life over four generations. It illustrates how our views of love, work, society and family changed over time and also shows how hard it is sometimes to bridge the distances that separate us from our loved ones. It made me realize how little I know about the emotional life of my parents, my grand parents . .


A wonderfully engrossing and moving novel   August 25, 1999
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Dont let the jacket of this book deter you, for once you begin you immediatley realize that this is a thoroughly mezmerising and complex story. The story of three generations of Scandanavian women, who live through very different times, encourages you not only to look to them for inspiration: but to to your own maternal predecessors aswell. I was extremely moved and found the style and tone completley refrehing


Multi-generational female study of family realtionships.   March 30, 1999
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Although not previously familiar with this author's work, the jacket cover synopsis intrigued me with its allusions to an overlapping tale of three generations of Swedish women and the family they created. The book delivered on its promise 100%. In the process, the author has made each women's story as interesting as the next and made you understand eventually why you may not always like the way the women act. The author has done a good job of interweaving the tales and not telling each women's story in chronological order. This makes for a much richer story and allows you to see the characters interacting at different points in each of their lives. As a bonus, reading this book has given me more insight into the psyche of Scandanvian women than the two years I lived in Stockholm and the many years I have worked with Swedish women at the office. Definitely a tale to read if you are interested in family sagas -- regardless of where they are set -- rich with historical detail. Details you don't find in history books, but the details of everyday living that in truth is what makes up each of our lives.