Author Talk with Barbara Sjoholm

THE REINDEER OF CHINESE GARDENS

A novel by Barbara Sjoholm

Norwegian-born Dagny Bergland and her husband arrive in turn-of-the-century Port Townsend, Washington after years of sailing their merchant ship around the globe. They’re just in time for the Yukon Gold Rush and the arrival of a group of Sámi reindeer herders from Lapland on their way to Alaska to supply the ill-prepared miners. Dagny’s journals, beginning in 1897, tell a fresh and riveting history of the Pacific Northwest and its immigrants. A novel of friendship, love, loss, and motherhood, The Reindeer of Chinese Gardens is the story of a remarkable woman who learns to steer a new course in a new country.

Through the journals of Dagny Bergland, Barbara Sjoholm has given voice to the challenges of immigration from a variety of viewpoints – Norwegian, Chinese, Sami. Their stories are complex, touching, sometimes tragic. It is above all, a story of America and what it means to be assimilated into American culture and geography.  Marlene Wisuri, Chair, Sami Cultural Center of North America 

Sjoholm is a gifted storyteller, eloquent on the subject of Sámi prejudice and the poignant dilemma for all immigrants: Make a life for yourself in this new world, or surrender to the emotional pull of the old country? And while Dagny has her own demons, she ends up being not just a survivor, but a humane model for all of us. An engrossing novel that features a memorably strong, vibrant female character. Kirkus Reviews

Barbara Sjoholm is an author and translator from Norwegian and Danish whose books include the illustrated history, From Lapland to Sápmi: Collecting and Returning Sámi Craft and Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 2023); The Palace of the Snow Queen: Winter Travels in Lapland and Sápmi (Counterpoint; reissued University of Minnesota Press, 2023); The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O’Malley and Other Women of the Sea (Seal Press, 2004), and Blue Windows: A Christian Scientist Childhood (Picador, 1997). She has won grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Scandinavian Foundation. Her essays and travel articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Scandinavian Studies, among other publications.