”Allting kunde ha varit annorlunda"

Johannes Anyurus De kommer att drunkna i sina mödrars tårar och science fiction

Abstract

“Everything could have been different”: Johannes Anyuru’s They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears and Science Fiction

The purpose of this study is to examine to what extent Johannes Anyuru’s 2017 novel De kommer att drunkna i sina mödrars tårar (They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears) can be viewed as science fiction, by comparing it against three definitions of the genre: the paratextual, the novological, and the megatextual. The novel revolves around a terrorist attack in Gothenburg, thwarted by a mysterious girl who claims to be from a future where it succeeded and led to a dystopian Sweden. A Muslim author, initially skeptical, comes to believe her story, and is eventually convinced that the girl is, in fact, his own daughter.

Despite elements such as a future dystopia and time travel, the novel wasn’t marketed or perceived by most Swedish critics as science fiction. However, besides about a third of the novel being set in the future, it contains ample clues that the girl has indeed travelled in time, making the novel fit most formal definitions of science fiction. Moreover, the novel clearly connects to the science fiction megatext with its abundant references to the genre, particularly to Harry Martinson’s science fiction epic Aniara (1956) and to several famous time travel narratives, such as La Jetée (1962), The Terminator (1984), and Twelve Monkeys (1995).