Scribe has acquired the debut novel by Swedish author and musician Annika Norlin, best known for her work in bands Hello Saferide and Säkert!. Colony was nominated for several awards in Sweden, and won the Vi magazine 2024 literature prize. Perfect for readers of Sophie Mackintosh, Julia Armfield, Diane Cook, and Emma Jane Unsworth, it will be published by Scribe in March 2025 as their lead debut title of the spring, and will be translated by Alice E. Olsson.
In Colony, a young woman suffering from burnout goes to the woods to recover. There, she observes a group of seven people living away from society. She becomes fascinated with their strange ways, eventually making contact with them and re-evalutating her own behaviours — but groups always have their dynamics and roles, and as she becomes more drawn to this strange group, she discovers the cost of joining the colony.
Annika Norlin said: ‘I'm really excited for Colony to go on and meet readers in new countries. Half of Colony I wrote slowly, half of it I wrote during a few, very intense months, almost feverish. It deals with a lot of the questions I've been thinking about the last couple of years. What's the right way to live your life? Where should you live it? And most of all: people. It's horrible to live amongst others and even worse not to. Some people have told me they feel Colony deals with the issues of today. I didn't think about it while I wrote it, I just wrote, but now in hindsight, I think I agree.’
The publication will be supported by a major publicity and marketing campaign next spring, and proofs are available now. Adam Howard, Publicity and Marketing Director at Scribe, said: ‘Colony is a cult novel in both senses of the word, and I was struck by how intricate and intimate Annika’s is — you get to know every member of this strange little colony inside and out. We think it’ll tap into the questions many of us are asking ourselves at the moment: what have we lost, living in a fast-paced, attention-addled world — and what would we sacrifice to get it back?’
UK and Commonwealth rights were acquired from Michael Dean at Andrew Nurnberg Associates UK.