The publication of Wild Boar represents several firsts: The first novel (originally published in 2016) by Finland Swedish author Hannah Lutz. The first full-length adult translation publication for translator Andy Turner. And (adding to its catalogue of poetry, short fiction and children’s books), the first novel for adults released by The Emma Press. It is a short, intense examination of the relationship between humanity and nature.
The novel revolves around the forests of Småland in southern Sweden, where wild boar proliferate. Three characters have their own reasons for going there. Ritve has seen the boar in dreams and in videos online and sets out from Finland to find them. Ritve’s story is that they are a filmmaker, but it seems that what they’re really after is a sense of belonging. Ritve meets hunters and learns how the boar’s habits have changed with the encroachment of humans. But the boar always seem to be one step ahead of Ritve, and that sought-for feeling of belonging is just as elusive: ‘I used to think the damp, dense forest would connect me with all living things, but I have no sense of sharing this forest with the wild boar. I don’t feel their movements, I don’t know what they want. … Suddenly I remember I didn’t come to be alone. It was something else, something familiar that I felt a yearning for. Now I’m here, I don’t know how to be alone in the forest.’
Where Ritve has come to Småland on a quest, council-worker Glenn has moved from the city to escape. But he has notions that the apocalypse is coming, and the wild boar disturb his plot of land at night. In the stories of both Glenn and Ritve, the boar are more than animals. They represent nature, as a force to be revered or feared (or both). Nature is out there, pressing in on Glenn’s space and remaining elusive to Ritve, with both characters having to work out how to relate to it.
Lutz’s third protagonist, Mia, is reckoning with a force that’s more personal. She has taken up a residency for local history projects in order to bring her ailing grandad back to his old school. She’s hoping that this will spark his memory, but the laborious task of trying to reach him takes its toll, and makes Mia wonder if this is a good idea: ‘I ask him what the mushrooms are called. I point to them one after another. Keep talking, Mia, keep talking. I keep talking. I feel stupid. I pretend to be more stupid than I am. Grandad, what’s a death cap? He must hate me. I mean, we’re both adults now. Is this love, or is it murder? Am I the one who is ultimately destroying him?’
In Mia’s strand of the novel, ‘wild boar’ is a game her grandad played at school. This underlines that her story is bringing the book’s central questions to a smaller canvas. She has to navigate her grandad’s unpredictable condition, consider what she really wants for him (and for herself), and face the consequences, whatever they may turn out to be.
In the relatively small scope of Wild Boar, Hannah Lutz presents three examples of humans challenged to find their place in a changing environment. It’s a book that asks its readers: ‘What would you do?’
Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite
WILD BOAR
Written by Hannah Lutz
Translated from the Swedish by Andy Turner
Published by The Emma Press (2025)
June 2025 #RivetingReviews titles are available to buy from bookshop.org.
David Hebblethwaite is a reader and reviewer from the north of England, now living in the south. He has written about translated fiction for publications including Strange Horizons, Shiny New Books, and The Riveter from European Literature Network. He also has his own website, David’s Book World.
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of THE CARNIVOROUS PLANT by Andrea Mayo
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of AWAKE by Harald Voetmann
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of CRAVING by Esther Gerritsen
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of FOUR BY FOUR by Sara Mesa
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of THE PIED PIPER by Viktor Dyk
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of THE MEASURE OF A MAN by Marco Malvaldi
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of BIRD COTTAGE by Eva Meijer
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of I AM BEHIND YOU by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of BREATHING INTO MARBLE by Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of THE TOBACCONIST by Robert Seethaler
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of THE WINTERLINGS by Cristina Sánchez-Andrade
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of FRAGILE TRAVELLERS by Jovanka Živanović
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of THE BICKFORD FUSE by Andrey Kurkov
Read David Hebblethwaite’s #RivetingReview of MEND THE LIVING by Maylis de Kerangal
Leave a Reply