When the Cranes Fly South

Bo is eighty-nine. He spent his working life at a sawmill in northern Sweden, and now his body is failing him. His days are marked by visits from his home-care team, a weekly phone call with his oldest friend Ture, and memories that increasingly stand in for the present. Since his wife moved into a nursing home, one thing still anchors him: his dog, Sixten.

Then his son Hans decides the dog has to go, convinced his father can no longer look after him.

The threat of losing Sixten forces open everything Bo has left unsaid. He wants to be closer to Hans than he ever managed to be with his own father, but the words don't come easily, and his refusal to give up the dog keeps getting in the way of the two of them reaching each other.

Lisa Ridzén's debut is a quiet novel about growing old, about holding on to authority over your own life, and about the attachments that survive when little else does. Published in Sweden in 2024 as Tranorna flyger söderut, it was named Swedish Book of the Year and has since appeared in more than thirty languages.