The Gentlemen Put Us Here

The Gentlemen Put Us Here: About the Forced Relocations in Sweden (Swedish: Herrarna satte oss hit. Om tvångsförflyttningarna i Sverige) is the first published book by Swedish journalist Elin Anna Labba. It won the 2020 August Prize for Non-Fiction.^[1][2] The full English translation of Elin's work is titled The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow: The Forced Displacement of the Northern Sámi.

The Gentlemen Put Us Here: About the Forced Relocations in Sweden

First edition
Author	Elin Anna Labba
Original title	Herrarna satte oss hit. Om tvångsförflyttningarna i Sverige
Language	Swedish
Subject	Sámi people, Reindeer herding
Genre	history
Published	January 28, 2020
Publisher	Norstedts förlag
Publication place	Sweden
Awards	August Prize (2020)
Followed by	Hearrát dat bidje min: Bággojohtimiid birra (2020)

Plot

The book describes the forced displacement of Sami people that began between 1919 and 1920 after Sweden and Norway signed the Reindeer Pasture Sharing Agreement (Swedish: Renbeteskonventionen från 1919). Labba's work on the subject stems from her desire to better understand her own family history.^[3]

Translations

In 2023 the book was translated into English by Fiona Graham and published by University of Minnesota Press under the title The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow: The Forced Displacement of the Northern Sámi.^[4][5] The Gentlemen Put Us Here is the literal translation of the Swedish title; however, a different name was chosen for the English translation of the work.

The same year the original was published, it was also translated into Northern Sámi under the title Hearrát dat bidje min: bággojohtimiid birra and from Swedish to Norwegian Bokmål in 2021 as Herrene sendte oss hit: om tvangsflyttingen av samene.