Crimson by Niviaq Korneliussen

Crimson by NivIaq Korneliussen

Greenlandic Fiction

Original title – Homo Sapienne

Translator -Anna Halager

Source – Library

I was shocked to find this at the library as it is a book that had completely passed me by as a reader, I look out for things from countries I haven’t read from I am not a completist for the world; I would like to get as near as I can so when this book from Greenland was on the library shelves I couldn’t say no as it is also an LGBTQ novel NivIaq Korneliussen is a writer that had initially written this in Greenlandic before translating it her own book into Danish. She was drawn into writing by a project in Greenland that encouraged young people from Greenland to write about their lives. This book follows the life of five young people in Nuuk, the largest city in Greenland well it is a city of 20000 people, and here is five people and their tales.

Peter. One man. Three years. Thousands of plans. Millions of dinner invitations. Vacuuming, dishwashing and cleaning, rushing on forever towards infinity. False smiles turning uglier. Dry kisses stiffening like desiccated fish. Bad sex should be avoided at all costs. My faked orgasms get harder to believe as time goes by. But we’re still making plans.

The days become darker. The void in me expands. My love no longer has a taste. My youth’s turning old. What keeps me alive is dying. My life has become worn, aged.

Life? What life? My heart? It’s a machine.

Fia talking about Peter as there relationship is falling apart.

The five characters are all connected. They have their own tales of growing up in Nuuk as they discover their sexual orientations as they fall out of those first relationships like Fia had just split from her relationship with  Pete, whom she grew to hate his body. But she is then drawn to Sara, and this connection leads to the title as they seem to hear the same song with the tile Crimson. after the break, she lives with her brother Inuk he is struggling with his sexual orientation, and this is at the heart of the book how do you be queer in Greenland a country with a past connected to Denmark. Inuk struggles as he wrestles with his own desires. He lives wirth a female friend ARNAQ THAT SEES Fia’s attraction to Sara and uses that to try and seduce her. This is a collection of five lives where they all criss and cross a bunch of young people growing up in a world that isn’t as wide as their worldview is. This is a novel that shows how hard it can be but also what family and friends can it mixes things like texts between the characters.  As they discover not only who they love but who they are.But also how those around them can use them and also have affairs.

Friday once again. It’s a strange week for me. I haven’t been to classes and I need to get out a bit. I decide to switch off the computer although I keep thinking of stuff I’ve found on the Internet. Romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behaviour between members of the same sex or gender. Google knows everything. But I still haven’t found the answer. Doubt, ignorance and confusion make me rest-less. But even so, I don’t want to go back to my comfort zone.
My comfort zone is gone. I’ve recovered from that fucking travesty last Friday, and Arnag and I have decided to deal with our restlessness. Hope has returned from the dead, popping up like the devil. All I need is to see her briefly.
Because I need to get to grips with my desperate brain.

I loved ther Googler line how much more do people know because of google how has it expanded peoples views and ideas !!

This is a gem of a book from a country with very little translated into English. It is beautiful that it is an LGBTQ book for a country that has just started to be open about sexual identity and orientation in the last twenty years. The kernel of the book was in the short story she had written as the incentive to encourage young people to write about their lives. She is a lesbian writer, so she drew us into that small community in Nuuk and their loves and lives. It is a coming-of-age story, a book of discoveries.  This is also why I love the library it had been in the limelight a couple of years ago, but I had missed or maybe not written this book down. So it has given me a new country and a new voice to follow as well. This is a fresh voice and a part of the world we know little about. Have you read any good LGBTQ books in translation?

Winstons score -+A new voice, new place and some interesting characters