Hanna Pylväinen
Hanna Pylväinen

While at Lásságámmi, Hanna Pylväinen will be working on her second novel, Drum-Time, a historical novel set in 1850s Sápmi. The backdrop of Drum-Time is the conversion of the Sámi people to Laestadianism in the 1850’s, but the novel’s plot centers around a (fictional) daughter of Lars Levi Laestadius, who falls in love with a Sámi reindeer herder.

Ideally, Pylväinen hopes to introduce the Sámi culture to more readers, and to show that Laestadianism was formed, in part, from the Sámi heritage of Laestadius; that is, that Laestadianism and Sámi shamanism may, at some level, be linked.

In particular, Pylväinen is looking forward to drafting several scenes of the novel which take place at nearby Lyngen, and she hopes that the work and home of Nils-Aslak Valkeapää will continue to inspire her prose and her understanding of Sámi culture.