The Colony

AN IRISH TIMES BEST IRISH BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022 'Vivid and memorable.' SARAH MOSS 'Luminous.' Observer 'I utterly ADORED it.' MARIAN KEYES He handed the easel to the boatman, reaching down the pier wall towards the sea. Mr Lloyd has decided to travel to the island by boat without engine - the authentic experience. Unbeknownst to him, Mr Masson will also soon be arriving for the summer. Both will strive to encapsulate the truth of this place - one in his paintings, the other by capturing its speech, the language he hopes to preserve. But the people who live on this rock - three miles long and half-a-mile wide - have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken and what is given in return. Soft summer days pass, and the islanders are forced to question what they value and what they desire. As the autumn beckons, and the visitors head home, there will be a reckoning. ''Beautifully written.' STELLA, The Telegraph ' The Colony contains multitudes. . . with much of it just visible on the surface, like the flicker of a smile or a shark in the water.' The Times ' The Colony is a novel about big, important things.' Financial Times 'Beautiful, haunting and incredibly powerful book.' FÍONA SCARLETT

AN IRISH TIMES BEST IRISH BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022 'Vivid and memorable.' SARAH MOSS 'Luminous.' Observer 'I utterly ADORED it.' MARIAN KEYES He handed the easel to the boatman, reaching down the pier wall towards the sea. Mr Lloyd has decided to travel to the island by boat without engine - the authentic experience. Unbeknownst to him, Mr Masson will also soon be arriving for the summer. Both will strive to encapsulate the truth of this place - one in his paintings, the other by capturing its speech, the language he hopes to preserve. But the people who live on this rock - three miles long and half-a-mile wide - have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken and what is given in return. Soft summer days pass, and the islanders are forced to question what they value and what they desire. As the autumn beckons, and the visitors head home, there will be a reckoning. ''Beautifully written.' STELLA, The Telegraph ' The Colony contains multitudes. . . with much of it just visible on the surface, like the flicker of a smile or a shark in the water.' The Times ' The Colony is a novel about big, important things.' Financial Times 'Beautiful, haunting and incredibly powerful book.' FÍONA SCARLETT

On the morning of 4 November 2019, an unassuming caravan of women and children was ambushed by masked gunmen on a desolate stretch of road in northern Mexico controlled by the Sinaloa drug cartel. Firing semi-automatic weapons, the attackers killed nine people and gravely injured five more. The victims were members of the LeBaron and La Mora communities—fundamentalist Mormons whose forebears broke from the LDS Church and settled in Mexico when their religion outlawed polygamy in the late nineteenth century. The massacre produced international headlines for weeks and prompted President Donald Trump to threaten to send in the US Army. In The Colony, bestselling investigative journalist Sally Denton picks up where the initial, incomplete reporting on the attacks ended, and delves into the complex story of the LeBaron clan. Their homestead—Colonia LeBaron—is a portal into the past, a place that offers a glimpse of life within a polygamous community on an arid and dangerous frontier in the mid-1800s, though with smartphones and machine guns. Rooting her narrative in written sources as well as interviews with anonymous women from LeBaron itself, Denton unfolds an epic, disturbing tale that spans the first polygamist emigrations to Mexico through the LeBarons’ internal blood feud in the 1970s—started by Ervil LeBaron, known as the “Mormon Manson”—and up to the family’s recent alliance with the NXIVM sex cult, whose now-imprisoned leader, Keith Raniere, may have based his practices on the society he witnessed in Colonia LeBaron. The LeBarons’ tense but peaceful interactions with Sinaloa deteriorated in the years leading up to the ambush. LeBaron patriarchs believed they were deliberately targeted by the cartel. Others suspected that local farmers had carried out the attacks in response to the LeBarons’ seizure of water rights for their massive pecan orchards. As Denton approaches answers to who committed the murders, and why, The Colony transforms into something more than a crime story. A descendant of polygamist Mormons herself, Denton explores what drove so many women over generations to join or remain in a community based on male supremacy and female servitude. Then and now, these women of Zion found themselves in an isolated desert, navigating the often-mysterious complications of plural marriage—and supported, Denton shows, only by one another. A mesmerising feat of investigative journalism, The Colony doubles as an unforgettable account of sisterhood that can flourish in polygamist communities, against the odds.

NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOK OF 2025 NPR BEST BOOK OF 2025 BOOKLIST BEST BOOK OF 2025 A mega best-seller in Sweden, with rights sold to over a dozen countries and a TV adaptation underway, Annika Norlin's debut novel The Colony is the biggest Swedish literary phenomenon since Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove . "A disturbing, engrossing portrait of a tiny community living beyond society."--Joumana Khatib, The New York Times Book Review Winner of the Vi Literature Award and Swedish Radio's Novel Prize, two of Sweden's biggest literary awards, The Colony is a gripping portrayal of contemporary society and its alternatives. Burnt-out from a demanding job and a bustling life in the city, Emelie has left town to spend a few days in the country. Once there, in the peaceful, verdant hills, down by the river she encounters a mysterious group of seven people, each with personal stories full of pain, alienation, and the longing to live differently. They are misfits, each in their own way, and all led by the enigmatic and charismatic Sara. How did they end up there? Are they content with the rigid roles they've been assigned? And what happens when an outsider appears and is initially drawn to their alternative lifestyle but cannot help but stir things up? A masterful blend of humor, emotion, unforgettable characters, and sharp social commentary, The Colony is a magnetic and deeply touching story about love, community, and the unfathomable power we other others and that others have over us. ★ "Norlin's writing (as translated by Olsson) is clever and incisive, poking fun at modern society and the woodland community in equal measure... Ultimately, this is a treatise on humanity, on the things people need and the power and frailty of human connection. This is a novel that will stick with you."-- Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOK OF 2025 NPR BEST BOOK OF 2025 BOOKLIST BEST BOOK OF 2025 A mega best-seller in Sweden, with rights sold to over a dozen countries and a TV adaptation underway, Annika Norlin's debut novel The Colony is the biggest Swedish literary phenomenon since Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove . "A disturbing, engrossing portrait of a tiny community living beyond society."--Joumana Khatib, The New York Times Book Review Winner of the Vi Literature Award and Swedish Radio's Novel Prize, two of Sweden's biggest literary awards, The Colony is a gripping portrayal of contemporary society and its alternatives. Burnt-out from a demanding job and a bustling life in the city, Emelie has left town to spend a few days in the country. Once there, in the peaceful, verdant hills, down by the river she encounters a mysterious group of seven people, each with personal stories full of pain, alienation, and the longing to live differently. They are misfits, each in their own way, and all led by the enigmatic and charismatic Sara. How did they end up there? Are they content with the rigid roles they've been assigned? And what happens when an outsider appears and is initially drawn to their alternative lifestyle but cannot help but stir things up? A masterful blend of humor, emotion, unforgettable characters, and sharp social commentary, The Colony is a magnetic and deeply touching story about love, community, and the unfathomable power we other others and that others have over us. ★ "Norlin's writing (as translated by Olsson) is clever and incisive, poking fun at modern society and the woodland community in equal measure... Ultimately, this is a treatise on humanity, on the things people need and the power and frailty of human connection. This is a novel that will stick with you."-- Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)