Crimson by Niviaq Korneliussen

Crimson, Niviaq Korneliussen’s debut novel, is a web of relationships between siblings, lovers and friends. In Nuuk, Greenland, Fia breaks up with her long-term boyfriend and falls in love with a woman called Sara. Meanwhile, Fia’s brother, Inuk, is on the run while she moves in with his best friend Arnaq.

Told from the four characters’ perspectives in four sections, Crimson centres around one major event through which we learn about each character’s relationship to one another. Each has a distinctive style; for example, Inuk’s is told through letters while much of Arnaq’s uses images of text messages on phones.

While Crimson is experimental in form, Korneliussen’s stylistic choices hinder rather than help character development. We’re either left to read between the lines or battered over the head with surplus information from letters, texts and social media. Originally written in Greenlandic, it’s difficult to know whether the translation is the problem; however, Crimson’s structure doesn’t help itself. Themes of mental health and queerness are brushed on the surface but never explored in depth, leaving Crimson a rather unsatisfactory read.