Beautifully written and intriguing, Amatka follows Brilars Vanja Essre Two ('Vanja') as she travels to Amatka to create a research report for a personal hygiene. Trapped in the repressive colony, Vanja dreams of using language to break free, but her individualism may well threaten the very fabric of reality. Amatka is a beautifully weird and poetic dystopian about a world in which the language used to name things holds the power to shape them and the women who decide to speak differently. Unless objects, buildings, and the surrounding landscape are repeatedly named, and named properly, everything will fall apart. In Karin Tidbeck's dystopic imagining, language has the power to shape reality. But when she stumbles on evidence of a growing threat to the colony and a cover-up by its administration, she begins an investigation that puts her at tremendous risk. Intending to stay just a short while, Vanja finds herself falling in love with her housemate, Nina, and decides to stick around. It takes some adjusting: people act differently in Amatka, and citizens are monitored for signs of subversion. Vanja, a government worker, leaves her home city of Essre for the austere, wintry colony of Amatka on a research assignment. Amatka by Karin Tidbeck, translated by the author (Swedish, Sweden) Translated by the author, this spooky novel centers on Vanja, a government worker who travels to the titular colony of. Vanja, a government worker, leaves her home city of Essre for the austere, wintry colony of Amatka on a research assignment. Amatka is a beguiling and wholly original novel about freedom, love, and artistic creation by a captivating new voice. 'A surreal and shockingly original debut novel set in a dystopian world shaped by language-literally.