2024
After the critically acclaimed poetry Why Am I So Sad When I Am So Cute, Mermaid Heart is Ingvild Lothe’s debut as a novelist.
Mermaid Heart centres on the sea and its myths – such as mermaids and the darkness in its depths – but also on plastic, migrants drowning in the Mediterranean, being open to the world, loss and violence, wildlife and its importance to us humans.
Mermaid Heart is a poetic fragmentary novel that moves through the four seasons; where reality is warped and terrifying, and connection is impossible because the body holds on to grief too tightly; but where with spring, comes hope.
With her first novel, Ingvild Lothe takes care of the poet within. […] The novel is twisted, dark, painful, strange – and funny. And it kicks off with a bang from the very first page.
Lothe follows up her successful poetry collection Why Am I So Sad When I’m So Cute (2016) with a strong prose poem constructed liked a fragmented novel, about broken love, existential ambivalence and ocean depths just as vast and close as the starry sky.
5 out of 6 stars
There is significant linguistic skill on display in Ingvild Lothe’s work. [...] Violent relationships, plastic in the oceans and underwater girl power. Luckily, Ingvild Lothe remains true to form in her testing of the novel as a format.
5 out of 5 stars
Once again, Lothe has written a book that made a great impression on me [...] Lothe employs very beautiful and poetic language and writes with great tenderness, often about what is painful and vulnerable. But she’s also cutting, her language razor-sharp.
5 out of 6 stars
Ingvild Lothe
Stephen Butkus
