A Silenced Voice: The Life of Journalist Kim Wall

In this tender memoir, the parents of Swedish journalist Kim Wall recount their daughter’s exceptional life and her murder. As a journalist, Kim traveled extensively, writing stories on topics ranging from life in Cuba to tourism in North Korea to living conditions in the Marshall Islands that appeared in such publications as Harper’s Magazine, The Guardian, and The Atlantic. In 2017, while reporting in Copenhagen on Peter Madsen, an eccentric entrepreneur who had constructed a homemade submarine from which he intended to one day launch a self-built rocket, the 30-year-old Kim disappeared. Her dismembered body was later discovered, and Madsen gave several different explanations for what happened, but denied killing her. The authors meticulously describe the night they received a call informing them that Kim was missing, and in alternating chapters they segue between descriptions of Kim’s life and the aftermath of her murder (Madsen was convicted of sexual assault and murder received a sentence of life in prison). The authors recall their anguish and pain during the year following their daughter’s death, but also celebrate her life and share their mission to develop a memorial fund to provide young female reporters with support for their work. This is a passionate portrait of a woman’s meaningful life and her contributions to journalism. (July)