Bread and Milk

‘Karolina Ramqvist’s writing is straight-talking scripture’ – Heidi Julavits, author of Directions to Myself

A moving memoir detailing four generations of women through the food they share.

In Bread and Milk, Karolina Ramqvist traces a girlhood through food – she recalls the bag of tangerines devoured in one sitting outside her mother’s bedroom, and delighting in the luxury of that extra knob of butter on her grandmother’s rice pudding.

In the thin spread of low-fat margarine on her mother’s bread, and the pancakes on the counter each time she will be left alone for the night, the young Karolina learns that food connects the women in her life as much as it reveals the chasms between them. When she finds herself a single parent to a daughter of her own, food becomes the way for her to show her love, but also instils a complicated inheritance.

Bread and Milk is a brazenly intelligent – and mouth-wateringly delicious – reflection on love, motherhood and family from one of Sweden’s most notable literary stylists.