Alf Nilsen-Børsskog — The Author Chosen by the Language

Abstract

This article discusses Alf Nilsen-Børsskog’s four-volume series of novels <i>Elämän jatko</i> [Continuation of life, 2004–2015], seen as the first literary works treating the Kven culture from a native perspective. Nilsen-Børsskog’s novels are analysed as constituting a “counterstory”, a term coined in the postcolonial cultural research paradigm to refer to self-representation. The Kvens have been considered a national minority in Norway since 1999, and their language has been an official minority language since 2005. The present author scrutinizes how Nilsen-Børsskog’s work differs from previous literary descriptions of this minority, often marked by the frequent use of stereotypes of the Kven language and culture.