For readers of Rachel Cusk, Lisa Taddeo and the essays of Zadie Smith, Bear Woman is a beautifully wrought memoir from one of Sweden's bestselling authors
Marguerite de la Rocque didn't exist before her guardian abandoned her on a remote island.
Abandoned, pregnant to a man she'd met on board one of the first ships sailing to settle what became Canada, Marguerite was forced to fight for her life against the treacherous wilderness of Nova Scotia, giving birth alone. When her guardian returned nearly two years later, her lover and her baby had died, but Marguerite had survived. Returning to France, her story was concealed so that her family's reputation might be protected.
Centuries later, a woman with small children of her own begins writing about the life of Marguerite de la Rocque and her incredible story of survival. As she delves deeper into the hidden history of Marguerite, the woman begins to question her ability to tell this story, or that of any woman in history, and in so doing exposes a fundamental truth about what it is to be both a writer and mother.
'The deeply personal journey of a writer, surprising and illuminating, and for me, familiar in the most reassuring way as she loses herself in this compelling story' - Esther Freud, author of Hideous Kinky