Description
In the 1860s Swedish countryside, a poor farmer named Jan discovers what it means to feel—love, tenderness, and the fragile joy of becoming a father. As his family’s hopes rise, cruelty and suspicion from the very people around him turn daily life into a moral trial, threatening to unravel everything he has fought to protect. Blending realism with a dreamlike “emperor” fantasy, the story challenges rigid social hierarchies and exposes how communities can weaponize gossip, power, and respectability. With Selma Lagerlöf’s distinctive, lyrical storytelling—part psychological portrait, part social indictment—this novel explores the cost of compassion, the loneliness of feeling, and the dangerous distance between public judgment and private suffering.
Available Editions
paperback
BiblioBazaar
Published Jan 30, 2007
218 pages
ISBN: 9781426477676
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Details
First Published
2001
Language
eng
Content Warnings
No content warnings identified.