In 1851, at a remote village in the Scandinavian tundra, a Lutheran minister known as Mad Lasse tries in vain to convert the native Sámi reindeer herders to his faith. But when one of the most respected herders has a dramatic awakening and dedicates his life to the church, his impetuous son, Ivvár, is left to guard their diminishing herd alone. By chance, he meets Mad Lasse’s daughter Willa, and their blossoming infatuation grows into something that ultimately crosses borders—of cultures, of beliefs, and of political divides—as Willa follows the herders on their arduous annual migration north to the sea.
Gorgeously written and sweeping in scope, Hanna Pylväinen's The End of Drum-Time immerses readers in a world lit by the northern lights, steeped in age-old rituals, and guided by passions that transcend place and time.
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Hanna Pylväinen is the author of the novels We Sinners, which received the Whiting Award and the Balcones Fiction Prize, and The End of Drum-Time, a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award in fiction, both from Henry Holt & Co. She graduated summa cum laude from Mount Holyoke College and received her MFA from the University of Michigan, where she was also a Zell Fellow. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal; she is the recipient of residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Lásságámmi Foundation, as well as fellowships from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, two fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, a Princeton Arts Fellowship at Princeton University, and a Cullman Fellowship at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library. She has taught at the University of Michigan, Princeton University, and Virginia Commonwealth University; currently, she teaches at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. She lives in Philadelphia.
