In Scandorama, the Finnish novelist Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo, who writes in Swedish, and the Kenyan-Swedish artist Catherine Anyango construct a “perfect Scandinavian city.” This utopia, though, is achieved through dystopian means. The ideal population of Stohome (“The clean city. The beautiful people”) has been engineered by scientists at the evil Gentech corporation, with the undesirables—“the rubble of humanity”—banished to the dark side, the grimy, decaying city of Helsingy. With their portrayal of technology in the service of prejudice, Taivassalo and Anyango also represent the social manipulation that needs no scientific intervention to ghettoize “others.”
Susan Harris, Words Without Borders February 2018
Scandorama is a graphic novel published by Förlaget
