Bread and milk

Karolina Ramqvist

£16.99

Swedish writer Karolina Ramqvist traces a girlhood through food – that which has the potential to fill her up, but also threatens to consume her. She remember the tangerines eaten in gluttonous longing before her mother’s closed bedroom door; her grandmother’s rice pudding connecting her to a time when eating your fill was a luxury not readily afforded; the plate of pancakes left on the kitchen counter signalling that tonight would be another night spent alone. From the carefully restricted low-fat margarine on a slice of bread to the dried grease stains on an oversized dining room table, we follow several generations of women and their daughters as they struggle with financial and emotional vulnerability, independence and motherhood.

Out of stock

Publish Date: 13/02/2025

Description

‘Karolina Ramqvist’s writing is straight-talking scripture’ – Heidi Julavits, author of Directions to Myself

A moving memoir detailing four generations of women through the food they share.

In Bread and Milk, Karolina Ramqvist traces a girlhood through food – she recalls the bag of tangerines devoured in one sitting outside her mother’s bedroom, and delighting in the luxury of that extra knob of butter on her grandmother’s rice pudding.

In the thin spread of low-fat margarine on her mother’s bread, and the pancakes on the counter each time she will be left alone for the night, the young Karolina learns that food connects the women in her life as much as it reveals the chasms between them. When she finds herself a single parent to a daughter of her own, food becomes the way for her to show her love, but also instils a complicated inheritance.

Bread and Milk is a brazenly intelligent – and mouth-wateringly delicious – reflection on love, motherhood and family from one of Sweden’s most notable literary stylists.

Additional information

Weight 331 g
Dimensions 222 × 144 × 23 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages

272

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

839.78809 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K