“Malin C.M. Rønning (b. 1985) makes her debut with the distinctive novel Skabelon. The narrator – a young girl – grows up in a house in the forest with her seven siblings. Her father is a lumberjack and spends a lot of time away from the family. Her mother mostly lies under her duvet smoking. Intimacy and love is in short supply in the family, and the siblings are to a large degree left to themselves. However, Skabelon is not a realistic story about childhood and parental neglect. The novel has fairytale-like qualities and strong elements of natural mysticism, occasionally giving the novel a gothic atmosphere. This, as well as the author’s ability to represent the most painful scenes in a matter-of-factly way, makes Skabelon a novel quite outside of the ordinary.”
Vesaas First Book Award nomination jury’s statement

“Carries with it the promise of a great, powerful writer … its intense, precise and at the same time evocative descriptions of nature reminds you of what you can experience in the books of Vesaas … while reading quickly can make it seem frustrating, too compact, reading more slowly will reveal a distinct poetry, beauty and pain … Rønning’s novel [is] for those who like to take their time. For those who love words. For those who enjoy seeing psychology and reality emerge and melt together in prose … These readers have an exceptional, rare experience in store.”
5/6 stars, Jeppe Krogsgaard Christensen, Kristeligt Dagblad, Denmark

“The animals, plants and dreams save a neglected child in the delicate, poetic prose of this Norwegian debut … When Malin Rønning is at her best, the words slide slowly from human to animal and further to things and bodies, which are the only solid things in this world”
5/6 stars, Thomas Bredsdorff, Politiken, Denmark

“It’s in the balance between raw social realism and a poetically hazy child’s perspective that Rønning’s prose takes shape. But what makes this novel stand out is the girl, who shines in the midst of the mess and the misery, because she is so strongly present and so unusually at home in her own world”
Christian Dorph, Weekendavisen, Denmark

“Despite the fact that Skabelon is Malin C.M. Rønning’s debut, it is written with an incredibly confident hand. We can only look forward to her next book”
Recommendation of the week, Lyngby-Taarbæk Bibliotekerne, Denmark

“Malin C. M. Rønning made a strong debut with the novel Skabelon (2020), which from the very first page pulls the reader into a distinct atmosphere, marked by dreaminess and vulnerability. In raw, unstilted prose we follow Urd through memories of her childhood in the early 90s … The novel portrays the closeness between people and animals in a subtle, unusually beautiful way … Skabelon is a promising debut where magical elements are woven together with depictions of human relationships in a highly well-crafted way. Through [Rønning’s] distinct prose we read about the brutality that is to be found side by side with innocence, in both the forest and in the human existence”
Subjekt Award, nomination jury’s statement

“A novel that makes use of the gothic potential of the Norwegian forest … It’s her singular voice, as well as the way she switches between familiar schoolyard scenes and eerie, but intimate depictions of monstrous events, that make Skabelon an extraordinary novel … While the atmosphere and the fairytale-like narrator makes one think of Sara Stridsberg’s novels, the prose mixes dirty realism with a Karen Blixen-esque gothicism … Rønning’s twisted coming-of-age story reminds us that the connection between anxiety and inventiveness is not only something that belong to old folk beliefs”
Morgenbladet

“An exciting new Norwegian writer – one of a kind! … a powerful first novel … There is a touch of dread and unease about the world that Skabelon depicts, equal parts fairy tale and raw realism … an original debut novel that is both challenging and impressive, not least in its writing. The descriptions of nature, of flora and fauna, remind one of the Swedish writer Tomas Bannerhed’s award-winning novel The Ravens.”
VG

“Rønning’s impressive first novel takes place in strange, sinister surroundings … When an author finds a rhythm and texture that captures experience in exciting ways, such passages have accumulative effect: The sentences pile up on each other, amassing energy. This is perhaps why Urd’s paradoxical leaps between rough sentences and sophisticated observations work so well”
Aftenposten

“Rønning boils a dark, bitter witches’ brew with well-known ingredients … Rønning masters the power of suggestion, and provides scattered hints that something is going on … It’s never either too obvious or exaggeratedly restrained, and at no point am I certain where we are heading.”
Klassekampen

“Rønning has a command of prose and literary technique that can be the envy of far more experienced writers. The narrative voice asserts itself from the very first sentence … What makes the style so brilliant, is what happens between the sentences, how they are put together. This ability to let things unfold in between sentences, allows Rønning to circumvent the most explicit depictions of parental neglect and sexual abuse. Instead this is a strangely warm, almost uplifting book, about vitality, imagination, independence and finding comfort and humanity in tiny gestures and symbolic acts of attention. The wounded characters in Skabelon are treated with care and respect by the author, and, despite their poverty, also by each other. There is compassion and warmth here. Through this impressive accomplishment, Rønning manages to make this twisted family appear to us as full human beings, and thereby make the reader care about them … a truly promising debut, and, for long stretches, a brilliant book”
BLA