As a toddler, Solveig Torvik heard tales of a misplaced, mysterious great-grandfather who left Finland for the USA to make his fortune - leaving Torvik�s great-grandmother and his unborn daughter in the back of. As a reporter, Torvik made up our minds to find the destiny of the guy who his desires to Oregon. She exposed not just the tale of 1 guy, but in addition the saga of a whole kin. In Nikolai�s Fortune, a story of Scandinavian ladies, the journalist turns truth into fiction and stocks the stories of her ancestors as she imagines they might have instructed them.

Nikolai's Fortune is a heartbreaking, multigenerational epic, chronicling relations secrets and techniques and sufferings opposed to the backdrop of Scandinavian historical past and tradition. mixing memoir and ancient fiction, grandmother, mom, and daughter every one percentage their very own tale: Kaisa, of her mother�s love for Nikolai and her personal 500-mile trek on the age of twelve from impoverished Finland around the snowy mountains of Lapland; Berit, of kid slavery and an obsession with searching out her grandfather�s fortune for her mom; and Hannah, the voice of Torvik, of her formative years in the course of the Nazi profession of Norway and her family�s emigration to Idaho.

Through certain old study into census, church, and climate documents, in addition to educational and museum assets, Torvik recaptures a dramatic tale approximately misplaced to reminiscence and inherits anything worthy greater than a fortune in riches � a feeling of her kin historical past, ethnic historical past, and the generations of outstanding girls who got here earlier than her.

Norwegian-born Solveig Torvik was once a reporter, editor, and columnist on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for thirty years. She was once additionally a reporter for United Press overseas in Salt Lake urban and for the San Francisco Chronicle, and an editor on the San Jose Mercury News.