Anatomy of the Night. Anna Kim

On the night of August 31 to September 1, 2008, eleven people committed suicide in a small town on the poor and isolated east coast of Greenland. The suicides spread like an epidemic, affecting all social classes and age groups in a town whose inhabitants seemed to be “infected by a single touch or a single look.” At first glance, these suicides seem completely unrelated: only some of the deceased were casual acquaintances. But the observer wonders: “Isn’t it a mistake to assume that an individual’s life has meaning in itself—just as one person’s death has meaning independently of other people?”

The novel “Anatomy of the Night” tells the story of the last hours of the lives of eleven people, as well as of Greenland, a harsh country filled to the brim with cold, loneliness, but also with comforting charms. In her story, Anna Kim meticulously and picturesquely traces the twists and turns of life history and answers the questions of why everything had to happen this night.

Warning! The book contains detailed scenes of violence and suicide.