An ‘Invisibling’ view of a Northern Landscape: Inga Borg’s Plupp Series

A Shortage of Stories about the Sámi by the Sámi

The Sámi are the indigenous people of Sápmi – a region of Northern Europe (also referred to as ‘Lapland’) which spreads across Norway, Sweden, Finland and into North-Eastern Russia. Traditionally, the Sámi have been reindeer herders, which has resulted in a nomadic lifestyle following the seasonal movements of the herds. These movements have also affected the development of the language to the extent that not all variants are mutually intelligible. The languages are formally divided into Western (Germanic influenced) and Eastern (Finno-Ugric/ Slavic influences) and are then further divided into subgroups, which are also geographically defined, albeit not in relation to the current national borders. The legal status of the Sámi and their languages differs in each of the nations that comprise Sápmi.

In Sweden, the Sámi have been officially declared the indigenous people of Sweden and their own parliament - Sametinget – was established in 1993, noticeably later than similar bodies in Finland (1973) and Norway (1989). Although the ‘ting’ in Sametinget officially means ‘parliament’ and the 31 members are elected, the conditions for the formation of Sametinget clarify that Sametinget has the legal status of an agency, and thus does not have the right to create laws which might be in opposition of the Swedish generally elected government in Stockholm. Under the 2009 National Minorities Act, the Sámi, along with the other four national minorities (Romani, Finno-Swedes, Torne-Valley Finns and Jews) have been granted four rights. These are 1) the right to use their language in all dealings with the authorities, 2) to receive support for their home languages especially in pre-school education and when elderly, 3) to enable their culture to develop and 4) to inform the majority population about injustice in the past. These rights have enabled the release of funding, a little of which has been directed towards the publication of children’s literature in the national minority languages as children’s literature supports the home language, especially in the transition from home into pre-school care, as well as enabling the culture to develop. Furthermore, a literary text can present an individual, and yet still provide insight into the self-defining features of the group, which is valuable for fulfilling the fourth right amongst non-indigenous children. Literary characters can challenge non-indigenous readers’ stereotypes, provide information without causing feelings of embarrassment or awkwardness, and also create a sense of each group’s heterogeneity, although the risk that such figures will be regarded as the norm is ever present.

According to Sametinget for Sweden, only ten books for children, written in one of Sámi languages for children have been published in the last five years. Using the national library database as their source, Sametinget report the existence of a total of just 191 children’s books in Northern Sámi, 51 in Lule Sámi and 35 in Southern Sámi. This tiny collection of just 277 titles by Sámi authors for Sámi children is supplemented with a very limited number of books in translation. Seventeen of the 359 titles of children’s books in a Sámi language housed in the Sámi national library in Jokkmokk are from Inga Borg’s Plupp picturebook series. Borg, who was born near Stockholm, fell in love with the Northern Fells after her first visit in her teens and set her Plupp books there. The proportion of these books within the small collection available for Sámi speaking children indicates that there is something about Plupp that resonates well with Sweden’s indigenous peoples, and this letter endeavours to clarify why Borg’s work has been so well received.

A Series Spanning Forty Years

The Plupp books have been translated into other languages as well as Sámi variants, including Danish, English, Finnish, Faroese, Greenlandic, Norwegian and German. The English versions were published by Warner (the publishers of Beatrix Potter’s books), but the...