The Witches of Vardo: THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER: 'Powerful, deeply moving' - Sunday Times

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Marianne Gunn O’Connor, Marianne Gunn O’Connor Agency said: ‘Bergman’s brilliant novel The Witches of Vardø totally captivated me as it tells the story of deep-rooted fear: of women’s power, of things that couldn’t be understood by science and logic, themes that will resonate with women world-wide today. I am beyond thrilled that the wonderful Margaret Stead and Kate Parkin and all the fabulous team at Bonnier are shepherding Anya Bergman and these witches out into the world.’ One of the crucial moments was when I discovered this big book with all the witch trial records translated into English. These records still exist in Finnmark: the testimony of those accused. I’ve referred to that, and also interviewed and talked with the expert on witch hunts in Norway, Professor Liv Helene Willumsen. She has been incredibly helpful. Told from two POV we follow the lives of Anna and Ingeborg as they both try to survive during a time where every woman can be suspected of witchcraft. Out of the two women’s stories I felt more drawn to Ingeborg’s. After losing her father and brother she becomes the glue that’s holding her family together. Her mother is withdrawn and her younger sister Kirsten depends on her for survival. Even before the main action of the story started Ingeborg showed her tenacity and strength in the face of adversary, I feel we all have a little of Ingeborg in us, waiting to be unleashed. Whilst this book is women's historical fiction, it is based on actual people and events from the 1600's; and as a woman reading of these events, I found myself whipped up with righteous indignation at the unscrupulous treatment of women in the 1600's during the witch hunts and trials. The men characters are particularly disgusting, although none of the women characters are particularly likeable either (with the exception of Maren), but you can empathise with the women's plight nonetheless. I’ve noticed on social media, there’s a big community of people saying, ‘I read witchy books’ or ‘This is a genre I read,’” says Anya. “It’s like people who are really into fantasy books or really into science fiction, but there’s actually a group of people who say ‘I read witch books’ and it covers all genres in the sense that the witch books can be fantasy or they can be historical.”

Anna Rhodius was once the King of Denmark's mistress and has been sent into exile on the island of Vardø. She is gifted in healing and the creation of potions. More than anything Anna wants to return to her privileged life at court; yet who will she be willing to betray to achieve this end? While of a higher social class to the other women she remains vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft.This novel is unflinching in its portrayal of what awaiting a witch trial meant for the accused. The brutality was severe, the degradations, the inevitable outcome. It is not a novel for the fainthearted, yet it is also not gratuitous in its portrayal. Then they went to Kirsti, who said that Mari was to come with her to a Christmas party at Lydhorn mountain outside the city of Bergen in Western Norway, over 1,600 kilometers away. She then threw the skin of a fox over Mari and transformed her into the shape of a fox. [4] a b Willumsen, Liv Helene (2013-02-01). "Children accused of witchcraft in 17th-century Finnmark". Scandinavian Journal of History. 38 (1): 18–41. doi: 10.1080/03468755.2012.741450. ISSN 0346-8755. S2CID 96469672.

For many people today, tales of witches and sorcery are a popular form of entertainment. It’s easy to forget that only a few hundred years ago, such activities were a dark part of reality. The Steilneset memorial in Vardø, Norway Roggen, Vibeke (2014-09-29), "Ambrosius Rhodius", Norsk biografisk leksikon (in Norwegian) , retrieved 2019-10-25 She notes non-fiction reads, The Ruin of All Witches by Malcolm Gaskill and Mona Chollet’s In Defense of Witches, as well as Andrew Sneddon’s upcoming Representing Magic in Modern Ireland: Belief, History, and Culture. A lead title for Manilla Press publishing in January 2023, The Witches of Vardø is set in Vardø on the Varanger Peninsula in Norway during the witch trials of the seventeenth century and is based on true events. Anna is the King’s prisoner. She longs to return to the mighty Court in Copenhagen, yet the only way to achieve this is to cast her accusing finger on her fellow women.

The memorial was designed by French-American artist Louise Bourgeois and Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. It was the last major work of Bourgeois, who died at the age of 98 in New York just a few months before the memorial opened to the public. Inside the Steilneset witch memorial at Vardø. Photo: Jarle Wæhler / Statens vegvesen