Antiquity

‘Entrancing and calamitous, Antiquity dreams deeply into the shadows of desire and obsession. A precise and mysterious spell of a book.’

-- Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch

‘In Antiquity, Hanna Johansson probes the most forbidden recesses of desire, ageing, and memory in sentences as lucent and incisive as shards of glass. Wily, mesmeric, and utterly disarming, this fabulously translated novel held me captive from the very first page, and its questions and images will linger in my blood for a long time. Rarely have I felt so transported and beguiled by a book, let alone a debut. Don’t miss it.’

-- Maggie Millner, author of Couplets: a love story

‘A wonderful novel written with the menacing elegance of a cat burglar working in the shadows and at great heights.’

-- Catherine Lacey, author of Biography of X

‘Antiquity could have been a different, equally impressive novel, exploring its territories — queer familial and erotic longing, projection, the spectral lines of transgression — in the protective gear its sharp observations, meticulous intelligence, and gorgeous sentences would provide. Instead, what Hanna Johansson offers in her electric, unsettling debut refuses all protection and dares the reader to do the same. Kira Josefsson’s translation is its own marvel, the language brimming with just-kept chaos until the keeping’s no longer possible, the feeling’s just too big. I won’t forget this book or its aftermath: a confusion, a consternation, an explanation that is not an explanation, a story open at both ends.’

-- Anna Moschovakis, author of Participation

• Joint winner of The Catapult Prize for best Swedish fiction debut 2021 (Sweden)
• Short-listed for The Borås Daily Newspaper Debut Award 2021 (Sweden)