When the Cranes Fly South cover art

When the Cranes Fly South

 Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

When the Cranes Fly South

By: Lisa Ridzén, Alice Menzies - translator
Narrated by: Ifan Huw Dafydd
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $20.23

Buy Now for $20.23

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE SUNDAY TIMES WORD-OF-MOUTH BESTSELLER. A profoundly moving and life-affirming novel about one man’s desire to preserve his autonomy, the multitude of stories contained within a life, and the big things for which we have no words.

Shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize
Waterstones Book of the Month
______

Bo is determined to live his own life in his own way. But his son has other ideas...

Bo lives a quiet existence in his small rural village in the north of Sweden. He is elderly and his days are punctuated by visits from his care team and his son. Fortunately, he still has his rich memories, phone calls with his best friend Ture, and his beloved dog Sixten for company.

Only now his son is insisting the dog must be taken away. The very same son that Bo is wanting to mend his relationship with before his time is up. The threat of losing Sixten stirs up a whirlwind of emotions and makes Bo determined to resist and find his voice...

‘So heartbreaking and funny and beautiful and wise… an extraordinary book’ RICHARD OSMAN

'You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to buy twenty copies and give them to everyone you love’ FREDRIK BACKMAN

‘The most moving book I’ve ever read.’ JACQUELINE WILSON

© Lisa Ridzén 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Dark Humour Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction World Literature Village

Critic Reviews

So heartbreaking and funny and beautiful and wise… an extraordinary book
The most moving book I’ve ever read – heart-breaking but also heart-warming.
A novel anyone will take to heart. A simple yet effective meditation on mortality, love and care... Lisa Ridzén’s debut demonstrates how sometimes the simplest storytelling can be the most effective. Anyone anywhere who has worried for a crumbling parent, or worried about the crumble in themselves, or simply worried that their dog understood them better than their family, will identify with Ridzén’s novel.
A tender tale about ageing, our own and others, and the quiet brutality of love. About what being a man is, and what being a human is, about fathers and sons and fathers and dogs. It’s really a book for anyone who’s had to say goodbye. The kind of book you give to someone when you’re really trying to say “I’ve been thinking about you” but don’t know how.
This empathetic Swedish bestseller is a poignant, quietly devastating meditation on old age.
This profoundly moving novel is sure to melt you into tears faster than a Cornetto in the sunshine ... Poignant, beautifully written and guaranteed to spark introspection.
Through lucid, observant writing, Ridzén conveys the lack of autonomy allowed to elderly people in a heartfelt novel that gives voice to a sensitively realised old man.
Meditations on memory and fatherhood underpin this tender tale about a man defending his right to live independently.
It’s one of those “you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to buy twenty copies and give them to everyone you love” books.
There are not many novels that I want to tell you that you should read, but this is one of them. It is a novel about family, how our history shapes our present, and the many different forms that love can take. This is a beautiful and gentle novel about an honest and relatable man who simply wants to live quietly with his dog, and I won’t ever forget it.
All stars
Most relevant
I couldn’t have loved this book more . It’s the book of the year, it made me cry ugly cry It is told with aching honesty through Bo’s reflections & the carers’ daily notes, It’s a haunting, intimate portrait of love, loss, & the final, fragile chapters of life. The narrator did an amazing job I believed it was 89 year old Bo talking. The way Bo addresses his wife, Frederika, with such raw intimacy, & the scarf jar made his grief feel personal, & Hans’s struggle as a son trying to do what’s right mirrored fears, I think many of us carry. This book didn’t just make me cry; it cracked something open in me. It reminded me how important it is to say the things that matter; to hold close those we love, & to truly see the elderly beyond their failing bodies. A stunning, heartbreaking, unforgettable read.

Amazing - you will ugly cry

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A gentle story from the point of view of an older person approaching death. Though provoking.

Think about the end of your life

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A thoughtful novel, through the last stages of a normal man, who has lead an unremarkable life. This is how it is.

A beautiful novel , that approaches the end of life with humour and dignity.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This novel made me cry. What drew me in was it was you are listening to Bo, an elderly man tell his story. Everyone thinking they are doing the best for him, but are they. Carers trying to help, a son thinking he is doing his best. And a dog’s dedicated love. It has taught me so much that I will use in my workplace working with the elderly. I have taken so much from this novel and will recommend it to many of my colleagues. If you work with the older generation - then read this book. If you don’t, then still read it. You will grow a greater respect of your elder generation.
Thank you. Thank you.

The most beautiful story I have read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.