When she was 13 years old, a classmate of the writer Niviaq Korneliussen (Nanortalik, 1990) committed suicide. He was the first, but not the last. "During my childhood, I lost many people around me, young people who went to my school, acquaintances. Many others would commit suicide later, over the years," she recalls on the phone with the reading from her home in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. "However, at that time we didn't think about it, neither our parents nor our teachers talked about it. It was such a socially normalized situation that you didn't even question it".
She speaks from experience. Globally, the average suicide rate per year is 9 per 100,000 people. In Spain, it is around 7, but in Greenland, a country of just 57,000 inhabitants, the rate was between 2015 and 2018 of 81.3 per year (in 2021 it dropped to 59.9). And it has been much worse. In the 1980s, the toughest years, when suicide surpassed cancer as a cause of death, the rate exceeded 100, reaching a dramatic 120 in 1989, more than 70 people. This high percentage and the small population mean that everyone in Greenland knows someone who has committed suicide. Apparently, receiving the news of a relative or a friend's suicide is one of the events that mark maturity, like the first cigarette, the first kiss, or finishing studies.
This authentic epidemic is the root of The Valley of Flowers (Sexto Piso) a novel that is at once raw and tender, beautiful and painful, in which Korneliussen addresses this thorny issue with originality, sharp precision, and great literary quality. "After the success of my first book [Homo Sapienne, published in 2014, which we will come back to later], I traveled extensively throughout Greenland speaking in schools giving talks and writing workshops. That's how I met many young people with problems who receive no help from the system, and I realized that we really have a social problem," the writer recounts. "I started to engage in some activism, talking to politicians and participating in demonstrations. It didn't do much, and it was exhausting, so I decided that the best way to contribute was to write a novel, not focusing on statistics or a specific case, but criticizing the system and society in general."
"I wanted to escape from a dramatic story and show that a normal person can also have suicidal thoughts"
Fantastically written, the novel recounts just one year in the life of an anonymous protagonist searching for her place in the world. Despite experiencing mild bullying in school due to her homosexuality, the young woman has a loving and accepting family, is starting a relationship with a charming and beautiful girl, and has just begun studying at the Danish University of Aarhus. However, she harbors demons that she cannot control and self-sabotages, spiraling into an increasingly irreparable situation.
"I was very interested in portraying the protagonist as a normal person. Another of the sadly true stereotypes associated with Greenland, for years, was alcoholism and child abuse and neglect, which are sometimes used as excuses, for example, for suicides," she explains. "That's why I wanted to steer away from such a conventional story and focus on a normal person, with a common life and normal problems with her family, studies, adapting to living in other places. To show that even such a normal person can have suicidal thoughts".
A society marked by colonialism
In addition to the central theme, in this brave story of love, friendship, pain, and unexpressed words and feelings, themes such as belonging and home, loneliness and lack of communication, and, of course, the delicate balance on which mental health depends resonate. "In today's world, plagued by these ills, it is increasingly understandable that someone may have mental health problems, and it is easier to help them," Korneliussen opines, emphasizing that these suicidal tendencies do not always stem from major problems or traumatic experiences. "I grew up in a very small village in southern Greenland, with 1,500 inhabitants, where everyone knew each other. A safe environment. However, that does not prevent many acquaintances from deciding to leave this world. We must not underestimate the everyday, we must be attentive and offer help to anyone who may need it."
The novel unfolds in two aspects: the diabolical account of the protagonist's push towards the point of no return and brief texts on suicide to introduce each chapter, counting down from 45, the number of suicides committed in Greenland in 2019, the year she wrote the book. An example: "Woman, 25 years old. Found hanged in her partner's apartment". Here is another, of the second type: "We will always remember you, they write on Facebook and tag you, but the truth is that hardly anyone does, because almost everyone moves on, keeps navigating, and doesn't remember you until they think they see you on the street and suddenly realize, no, she's no longer here". "I did it to be able to write without filters, in brief pills, ideas as harsh as the fact that, in reality, many people don't really care about the deaths of their acquaintances," she points out.
"Much of this problem stems from the brutal Danish colonialism. Even I, at 35, grew up thinking that Danes were better than me"
Another chilling fact underlying the novel is the average age of the suicide victims, between 20 and 24 years old. Additionally, the vast majority are of Inuit ethnicity, which makes up almost 90% of the island's population. For Korneliussen, the colonization of the country - part of Denmark since 1814 and with autonomous government only since 2009 - and the loss of identity have created a contagious spiral that is difficult to break, stemming from historical traumas and affecting today's youth. "Beyond the geographical isolation and climate, my people carry very complex stories. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, Denmark implemented the so-called Spiralkampagnen ("spiral campaign"), which sterilized over 4,500 women," laments the writer. "During that time, there was also a forced industrialization that tore people away from their traditional lives and homes to work in the cities' factories. If we look at the statistics, there were no suicides until the 1950s, but since then, it increased brutally."
However, Korneliussen does not delve so far back and prefers to focus on the present and, above all, the future. "The problem is not something that is already settled but a very much alive generational legacy. Even I, at 35, grew up thinking that Danes were better than me. We really wanted to have fair skin, be thin, have blue eyes, and blonde hair. In Denmark, there are plenty of jokes about our alcoholism, our stupidity, and our violence," the author highlights. "Although, finally, today we are on the path to decolonizing our social elements, from healthcare to education and politics, created and dominated by Danes until recently, without considering our idiosyncrasy and convenience, and most importantly, our minds, to find an identity, a way of life, that is not so conflictive, especially for the youth."