Lost Heritage and Reconstructing Sámi Roots in Mats Jonsson’s Comic Novel När vi var samer

In Sweden, artistic expressions by Sámi authors and artists dealing with the trauma of lost language, culture and identity of the Sámi, the only indigenous people in Europe, have recently become visible in a prominent way. The film Sami Blood (2016), directed by Amanda Kernell, was shown at festivals in Europe. The epic poem Ædnan. Epos (2018) by Linnea Axelsson, about the forced migration of Sámi families, was awarded the prestigious Augustprize in 2018 for the best fiction book, and Elin Anna Labba received the same prize for nonfiction in 2020 for her documentary book Herrarna satte oss dit. Om tvångsförflyttningarna i Sverige (2020), also about Sámi forced migration in Northern Scandinavia. In 2021, Mats Jonsson published the comic novel När vi var samer (When we were Sámi), which had very positive reviews in the most prominent Swedish newspapers such as Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter. Mats Jonsson discovered that his ancestors were originally Sámi. He refers to the works of Axelsson and Labba and positions himself in the same genre, i.e. modern Sámi literature about lost heritage and identity. This paper sets the comic novel by Jonsson in the context of Axelsson’s and Labba’s works and, more generally, the renaissance of modern Sámi literature in Sweden. Furthermore, the analysis of När vi var samer will demonstrate how literature is intended to heal trauma, visualize a lost history and strengthen peripheral voices.