Yes, There Are Gay Reindeer Breeders!

“Is there a gay reindeer herder?” — with this seemingly simple, probing question on an online portal begins the new novel “Himmelsfeuer” (Amazon-Affiliate-Link). And immediately it becomes evident: this is about more than a query. It is about existence. About visibility. About the desperate hope not to be alone.

Ánte is in love with his best friend Erik. Erik, however, is in a heterosexual relationship with Julia, and when it comes to his inner life, he remains a closed landscape. Around Ánte: snow that mutes everything. Frozen lakes. Frigid temperatures, faced with which you can only brace yourself with thick layers. He loves the reindeer farm, the vastness of the outdoors, the snowbound world, the stars over Jokkmokk. And yet he is pushed toward a decision that feels like an either/or: queerness or origin. Desire or community.

Moa Backe Åstot tells the story from her own Sami tradition

Ánte’s family belongs to the Sami people; some passages in the book are also written in Sami, a language closely related to Finnish. The Sami are an Indigenous people of Scandinavia who today live primarily in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia. The author Moa Backe Åstot is Sami as well — and she does not shy away from recounting the violence history tied to this membership. She points to the racial biology of Herman Lundborg, who in the 1920s and 1930s led the State Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala and claimed that the “Swedish race mixed with supposedly inferior races.” A bitter, painful reminder of global colonial and racist practices whose legacies linger to this day: in the self-perception of Indigenous communities, in structural silences, in the lack of redress and ongoing insufficient reparations.

That is precisely the clever twist of this novel: Moa Backe Åstot writes from her own tradition—and still crafts a universally accessible, quietly queer story. A story of growing up in conservative, tradition-bound environments where one associates not only pain but also warmth, beauty, and belonging. When a queer character, broken by social ostracism, tells Ánte, “Promise me you’ll be braver than I am,” those are lines that linger long after. Words that speak to many queer people from the heart.

You feel for Ánte and you root for him
“Himmelsfeuer” is a quiet, unfussy book, carried by a clear, light prose. You feel for Ánte, you stay with him, you freeze and you hope with him. I practically flew through the pages on a wintry afternoon.

Yes, some supporting figures remain rather sketchy: Cousin Ida, who tries to push Ánte out of the closet; the male friends of the group — Erik, Juhán, and Máhttu — who meet for FIFA gaming and are dominated by booze and girls in their minds; or the parents from whom Ánte becomes estranged, fearing social ostracism from the community. Here I wished the work would linger more on the consequences. For homophobia doesn’t vanish on its own. It persists — in the unsaid, in wary glances, in a cold that is not only meteorological.

The strongest and most lasting impression comes from Áhhko, the grandmother: a calm soul who stands by her grandson and explains the family history of the Sami. In her encounters, what this book is capable of is condensed: tenderness without sentimentality, memory without bathos.

Both can exist — and that is precisely the courage of this novel. “Himmelsfeuer” shows the ambivalence of growing up in Jokkmokk: loving the place without being forced to stay, or needing to flee to a metropolis as the so-called queer dream destination. And it shows something simple, almost radical: that there are gay reindeer breeders.