Shocked Earth

Femke, her mother and grandfather have very different ideas about how to run their family farm; Femke wants to switch to sustainable growing, whilst her mother considers this an attack on tradition. Shocked Earth investigates what it means to have your identity entwined with your place of birth and your principles at odds with your closest kin. "A novel with great ambitions, which remains credible." “Shocked Earth shows us the impact of natural disasters on people´s lives. This is what literature can do.” “Goldschmidt manages to portray the lives of farmers in great literary style, and with authentic vocabulary.” "Shocked Earth exquisitely captures the way our lives and identities are interwoven with the land we live on, and how its destruction will ultimately be our own. A powerful portrait of a family, an exploration of love and grief, it is perhaps most of all an essential call to action – I was both heartbroken and inspired." "...a rural novel in which the characters by changing circumstances forced. With beautiful heroines and accomplices, opponents and a wonderful character like Fokko. " “Goldschmidt writes eloquently... showing the way the North of the Netherlands is held captive by the gas sourcing business.” “In order to be able to write Shocked Earth, Saskia Goldschmidt moved to a rural region … worked on a dairy farm and spoke to its inhabitants. This effort pays off in this thorough novel with a lot of empathy, showing how the earthquakes … forever change the lives of the people trying to keep this business going.” “Last weekend I read the book in one breath. How little did I know about the problems and life in the Groningen countryside ... will definitely recommend this beautiful novel!" "One of my favourite books of 2021 … Descriptions of nature, particularly of birds, were breathtaking" “Environmental issues … a very strong sense of place … a rarely explored thread in literature: modern, queer women living in rural areas … A beautiful novel about an urgent global social issue, root[ed] in a very specific place and time.⁠” “Well-written and worth reading, offering political insight and a glimpse of a little-known part of the Netherlands.” ''Shocked Earth is a powerful testament to what happens when the gatekeepers of the land, those with a deep connection to the earth, are silenced and displaced. But it’s also full of hope'' ''One of my favourite books of [the year]: it was one of those rare books that I kept thinking about while I wasn’t reading it … It’s an absolute cracker … this book’s humanity is precisely where its power lies.'' ''Contemporary dilemmas of land and industry, love and rebellion are played out through three generations of a family and spare fields and lonnings.''

''Pleads for a far-reaching reappraisal of the region’s wildness … with the magic of a mature poet.''

Femke, her mother Trijn and her grandfather have very different ideas about how to run their family farm. Tensions between mother and daughter are growing; Femke wants to switch to sustainable growing principles, whilst her mother considers this an attack on tradition. To make matters worse, their home province of Groningen is experiencing a series of earthquakes caused by a fracking operation near their farm. While the cracks and splinters in their farmhouse increase, the authorities and the state-owned gas company refuse to offer the local farming community any help. In Shocked Earth, Saskia Goldschmidt investigates what it means to have your identity intensely entwined with your place of birth and your principles at odds with your closest kin. And how to keep standing when the world as you know it is slowly falling apart.

• | Author: Saskia Goldschmidt, Antoinette Fawcett
• | Publisher: Saraband
• | Publication Date: May 13, 2021
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Paperback / softback
• | ISBN-13: 9781912235681
• | ISBN-10: 1912235684