Kenneth Steven
Kenneth Steven is a successful poet, novelist and children’s writer who has published some 25 books. His BBC Radio 4 documentary on the island of St Kilda won him a Sony Award. His previous novel, The Well of the North Wind (SPCK, 2016), was a spiritual tale set on 6th-century Iona, whilst Beneath the Ice (Saraband, 2016) tells the story of the Arctic Sami people. His latest novel, 2020, presents a dystopic vision of Britain at breaking point and was longlisted for The Portico Prize.
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Beneath the Ice tells the fascinating, often troubling, story of the Sami – the indigenous people of the Scandinavian Arctic. A proud and resilient people in an unforgiving yet majestic northern wildscape, the Sami have carved out an existence rich in tradition, where the old ways of reindeer herding, shamanic belief and the veneration of bears have not yet been forgotten. Author Kenneth Steven celebrates this unique culture in a collection of essays that chronicle his own lifelong love affair with the north, and his own encounters with the Sami. Displaying a deep empathy, he finds a people often persecuted and a community under threat from modernity and climate change. But he also uncovers the Sami’s idiosyncratic culture – and captures the very essence of northern spirit.