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Synopsis
Thank you for Fitzcarraldo Editions for the review copy of this novel.
I was intrigued by the premise of this novel. You can find the official synopsis on the publisher’s page, here.
In short, it is about a young teenage girl, Milde who has grown up an area called the Outskirts. Where, women with their daughters live expelled essentially, banished from one day to another from their home, jobs, and previous community. They live in tents, which they do their best to re-arrange and make it better over time, by selling fruits, or refreshments to tourist on the beach. Or just from looking for useable trash that they can up-cycle and use in their day-to-day lives. This is being done without any legal help or rights. The young girls, including the protagonist, Milde are trying to fight against this injustice with her two friends. In the end she and the others gets caught by the military. Then being thrown into a cell and eventually tortured relentlessly. She faces a choice: getting executed publicly in front of her mothers or ‘sign-up’ for an experimental journey to be ejected into a black hole called, Mass and die that way. She choses the Mass.
Why did this Book Speak to me?
I have found the premise very intriguing and powerful. I was not thinking that this is going to be a hardcore sci-fi story, and to be fair, it doesn’t masquerades to be one either. Samantha Harvey the author of the Booker Prize Winner Orbital* also shares her thoughts on the book. I have read Orbital before, (you can find my review here) so I kinda figured that I am going to go on a similar journey.
I would say, that if you liked Orbital, then I would recommend Event Horizon* as well. And if you are looking for a sci-fi book, this is more like in a category of dystopian lit/contemporary fiction. I knew this and still can’t help if I see any sci-fi, space-related book coming my way. I think it’s important to learn to read books as they are, and not as we readers want them to be. Let the books be themselves and just accept them as they are. I think Event Horizon is one of these books, that it functions as its own category, its own being. Pretty much like what the book is also about. But before I jump into the spoiler part, here is a little info pack about the novel, the author and the translator of Event Horizon.
The Author
Balsam Karam wrote Event Horizon in Swedish as she lives in Sweden from a young age. She was born in Iran and has Kurdish ancestry. Apart from being an author she is also a librarian in Stockholm (coolest job ever) and university lecturer at the University of Gothenburg.
Event Horizon was her first debut novel, which was published in 2018 with the original title: Händelsehorisonten.
It has 216 pp, which makes it a short but meditative read. In the UK the English version translated by Saskia Vogel was published in 23 April, 2026 by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
Her other works include: Singulariteten or The Singularity*, also translated by the same translator, Saskia Vogel. Published on 17th of January, 2024 also by Fitzcarraldo Editions. Another heavy and grief-stricken novel on migration, suicide and motherhood.
Her upcoming novel Mörk materia – en kärleksroman was released in Swedish but we do not have the English translation yet. I’m assuming it’s worth to keep an eye on Fitzcarraldo in the future. I have also found this info on Norstedts Agency’s website about the synopsis. This is going to be the last instalment in her space themed trilogy and seemingly with the most dynamic plot out of the three.
The Translator
Saskia Vogel has translated more than twenty-three books (according to Wikipedia), including titles like: Aednan by Linnea Axelsson*, finalist for the National Book Awards (2024) in the category of Translated Literature. Following Sámi families and their traditions, struggles, tragedies and their beautiful hymn of indigenous lives over a hundred years. Note: I have found more books translated by her than what Wikipedia lists, I included them in my book list, which you find down below in the paragraph or after as an embedded widget.
October Child by Linda Bostrom Knausgaard* The author writes about her experiences being subjugated to go through electro convulsive therapy in a psych ward where she stayed over four years from 2013 until 2017.
Or, The Ways of Paradise by Peter Cornell* which is supposed to be a found manuscript on a deceased researcher who only left behind these texts, notes, ruminations and connections about art, history and literature with a main focus on labyrinths and spiral patterns.
Just a few amazing title to mention. I have gathered all the available titles on my bookshop.co.uk site, which you can find here, or just below this paragraph as a list.
Saskia Vogel is also an author, her book Permission* explores the idea of sexuality as a comfort. The narrator meets a dominatrix after going through a hard episode of grief, who seems not just to help her but actually treasures her in her own beautiful way.
She is also the deputy editor of Erotic Review, a literary and art magazine with a focus on the human condition, experienced through the lens of pleasure.
About Event Horizon
Page numbers: 216
Published: 23rd of April, 2026
Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions
It doesn’t really have chapters but it has an interesting short structure, where sometimes a page is not fully filled out with text. I think it helps with the reading experience and also adds meaningful pauses just like in acting when even silence has meaning.
It Exists
I have read What Am I, a Deer? by Polly Barton* (my review), that was also kindly sent by them beside Event Horizon and i still think about it. Not even think about it, I don’t think this is the right term, it’s more like, it became a prominent literary neighbour in my head. It constantly exists alongside novels like How I Killed the Universal Man by Thomas Kendall* (review here) or Dragon Palace by Hiromi Kawakami* (review here). Where I’m not sure I have the expertise or in some cases like Event Horizon, even the right to think I understood what the book is about but nevertheless, it exists inside me without the need of logical reasoning.
“There you will find what does not want to be found but exists nonetheless.” Balsam Karam, Event Horizon
A World that Doesn't Want You - A World You've Created With Others
There were quite a few parts of the book that positively pissed me off. Not at the book or the author but at the world, in general. Even though Event Horizon is a dystopian fiction novel the systematic exclusion, the way the officials washed their hands hiding behind the cape of legal bureaucracy, which also made the girls life not just impossible but un-accessible and unusable enraged me so much that all I could scratch on the side of the page as marginalia is: FUCK OFF.
And that’s how we should feel in general about the impossible processes that refugees need to go through day by day. Even if you do your best it will never be enough, because the system was and is set up exactly like that. Flexible enough to make you think you have a chance to actually have human rights but in reality you don’t, because you would’ve needed to move and gather all the relevant information yesterday. At the latest. You are simply too late, and anyway probably all those papers that you would’ve brought are not qualifying for a shiny stamp that says you are a human being. Wolves dressed up as sheep.
What Would You Do?
So being left alone there. With the tents, with the other girls and mothers who has been snatched away from their careers their homes , what can you do? What would you do?
What women always do: Survive. Survive and fight for every morsel of food and water and become extremely resourceful and good at up-cycling. Over time, you build up your routine you work together with others and establish a community where your tiny daughter will be brought up.
She only knows the world through the eyes of the Mothers and her sisters, her friends. She lives, works and breathes for her community, with her community. She becomes one with the Outskirts. And even if society at large would not like them to even exist, they still refuse to conveniently die. What’s more, at some point they may even thrive and when that point is reached its when our little daughters are started to become young women. Who think, who love and who fight for their rights and for their community’s rights. It’s plain and simple.
What it means: To Be Loved?
I think Event Horizon changed the definition, to be loved, inside me. I thought I had at least an inclination what it is to be loved by someone. But reading Milde and her community’s love for each other made me realise that I was a very happy goldfish in a tiny aquarium with a three-second short term memory. Who was happily swimming from one side to the other always being happy, because by the time I got there I forget about everything.
“… – I do not forget where my consciousness was born and how, with bubbling muddy water under my feet, I grew to be this big.” Balsam Karam, Event Horizon
The author doesn’t really go down on an individual level, it is more like becoming one entity. The sense of community and taking care of each other is so strong, that there is no protagonist without the others. There is no singular self. They are THE SELF.
This is why it is so important to read out of our comfort zone sometimes. To read hard novels and get really lost in it. Be angry with the character, feel and think for the character, because it helps not just with empathy but with discovering and understanding our own past, upbringing and notions of emotions.
And we get to grow and mature, without losing something from ourself. Which essentially, if you think about it is a privilege. Because most of the time life just comes for all of us. Regardless if we are ready for the class to begin or not.
What's next:
My Top 10 Books I Read in 2026. Mid-year check-in. These books are not necessarily published in this year, but I definitely read them in 2026.
I am also putting new lists up to my virtual bookshop, could be interesting for someone who are looking for new books or just for general recommendations.
And I have a lot of ideas about what to write for the upcoming weeks, months even. Keep your eyes peeled for the main page, as the current reads are always changing, and I always have some cool info there.
I have also made a little Throne Wishlist as an alternative way of supporting this website. Any gifted book will be reviewed and will have a shout out, unless the person who gifts it choose to be anonymous.
ALL OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE MY OWN
If you like my work please consider supporting my page by buying me a cup of coffee or buying a book through my affiliate links. I also have a bookshop.org UK where you can find even more books I recommend. It would mean a tremendous lot because this way I can make sure that I can keep my website safe, up and running. I am posting new reviews every weekend. Alternatively, if you wish to gift a book rather than any of the above, check out my Throne Wishlist, where I collect all the books that I would love to read.
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