Breven från Maresi review

The Red Abbey Chronicles is a trilogy about a matriarchal religious community, set in a mythical, pre-industrial landscape. The first novel, Maresi, is narrated by Maresi Enresdotter, a young girl who has fled harsh conditions and found refuge in the separatist Red Abbey on a remote island. Female supernatural powers and a goddess mythology – centring on a trinity of Maiden, Mother, and Crone – are at the core of the novels, which feature collective power as a means of achieving emancipation and resisting violence against women.  And Turtschaninoff does not shrink from detailed descriptions of oppression. The second novel, Naondel, is a prequel, and a collective novel describing the events that led to the founding of the Red Abbey. It is a patchwork of women’s voices recounting the abuse they have suffered as members of a vicious ruler’s harem. Here the violence escalates. In the third novel, Maresi returns to her home village. With her fiery red mantle and unbraided hair, and, above all, with her talk of founding a school for girls, she endures the hardships of an educated and emancipated woman who, having outgrown her social origins, now struggles to reconnect to them.

One of the most compelling aspects of the series is its literary form, bringing together chronicle, legend, and myth. Breven från Maresi is an epistolary novel featuring three collections of letters from Maresi to her fellow feminist friends and mentors at the abbey. Since the letters are archived for future generations, Turtschaninoff’s masterpiece symbolically depicts women’s history, literature and knowledge.

Whereas the first two novels in the series examine separatism and collectivism, the third one raises the difficult issue of how to convince others of your ideas, as a first step towards an equal and democratic society.  Addressing women’s access to knowledge and leadership, as well as ecological issues, Turtschaninoff’s novel is spot-on as a commentary on today’s political climate. Questions raised by the individual’s quest on the one hand and collective networking on the other are skilfully navigated, and a strong feminist genealogy runs through the trilogy.

One of Turtschaninoff’s strengths is her ability to build credible fictional worlds with the potential to address societal dilemmas. How can a feminist handle heterosexuality? This is one of the thorniest underlying questions raised as Maresi confronts the oppressive patriarchy and happily states that she has found a way to have it all: a man, a family, and work.

Compelling and unpredictable, Breven från Maresi is a timeless story about power and repression. Though written with a light touch, its prose is grounded in reality, and convincing. Whereas many YA fantasy novels seem to build their worlds as they emerge, Turtschaninoff apparently possesses a wealth of detailed knowledge of the regions she depicts. Most of her novels, such as Arra (2009) and Anaché (2012), return to similar thematic ground, such as gender and feminism. Rich in magic and provocative in their portrayal of a feminist utopia, the Chronicles of the Red Abbey are both timeless and contemporary. With her heroine Maresi, Turtschaninoff has revitalised feminist fantasy by taking the theme of the girl as saviour to the next level, thereby reimagining fantasy conventions.