The Singularity - Balsam Karam, Saskia Vogel (Translator)

Category: Adults, General Fiction
Language: English
Keywords: Scandinavian Literature

Written by Balsam Karam, Saskia Vogel (Translator)
Read by Mara Wilson
Format: M4B
Bitrate: 128 Kbps
Unabridged

In an unnamed coastal city filled with refugees, the mother of a displaced family calls out her daughter’s name as she wanders the cliffside road where the child once worked. The mother searches and searches until, spent from grief, she throws herself into the sea, leaving her other children behind. Bearing witness to the suicide is another woman—on a business trip, with a swollen belly that later gives birth to a stillborn baby. In the wake of her pain, the second woman remembers other losses—of a language, a country, an identity—when once, her family fled a distant war.

Balsam Karam weaves between both narratives in this formally ambitious novel and offers a fresh approach to language and aesthetic as she decenters a white European gaze. Her English-language debut, The Singularity is a powerful exploration of loss, history, and memory—an experience akin to “drinking directly from a flood of tears” (Aftonbladet).

Length: 3 hrs and 24 mins
Release date: 03-26-24