In Ma and Me Anne B. Ragde draws a vivid, loving portrait of an unconventional woman: her own mother.

Ma – Muttra – emerges as a woman of contradictions: a lover of warm weather and sun, who settles in rainy Trondheim after fleeing her own mother in Copenhagen; a factory worker with fiercely conservative political views. A woman who clearly loves her two daughters, but whose almost child-like impulsivity leads her to irresponsible, even reckless behaviour – although the victim of this would usually be herself.

Ma and Me is also the story of how Ragde herself finds her unlikely way to a career as a writer. It is a story of both grit and coincidence. It’s also a story where her mother is ever present, sometimes in the background, sometimes at the very center of the novels themselves.

Both tender and hilarious, empathetic and baffled, Ma and Me will delight and move its readers.