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When the Cranes Fly South

2024 debut novel by Lisa Ridzén

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ136650035 ↗
Source-derived summary

When the Cranes Fly South (Swedish: Tranorna flyger söderut) is the 2024 debut novel by the Swedish author Lisa Ridzén. It follows an elderly man who attempts to mend his relationship with his son. It was translated into English by Alice Menzies. The book was the 2024 recipient of the Swedish Book of the Year award.

Author

Lisa Ridzén was born on 4 March 1988. She grew up in the village of Hegled in rural Jämtland; both her parents were teachers. She studied gender studies and sociology at Umeå University, and is taking her PhD at Mid Sweden University. Tranorna flyger söderut is her first book.

Plot

When the Cranes Fly South tells the tale of an 89-year-old man, Bo, nearing the end of his life. He worked for 50 years in a local sawmill and now lives alone with his Jämthund, Sixten, in rural Jämtland, some 550 kilometres north of Stockholm.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “When the Cranes Fly South” is 2024 debut novel by Lisa Ridzén. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through When, Cranes and South, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2024, 1988—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2024. For this dossier, When, Cranes and South is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “2024 debut novel by Lisa Ridzén” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q136650035. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024 and 1988.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “When the Cranes Fly South”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow When the Cranes Fly South primary sources, When the Cranes Fly South archive and When research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “When the Cranes Fly South”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “When the Cranes Fly South” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.