An essential component of what begins to look like an extended work of major importance.""-Kirkus Reviews. Moving on from the early twentieth century until the inter-war years, The Spring follows the development of the characters and the community familiar to readers from Witches' Rings (available from Dufour). With a narrative of great subtlety and compelling power, it focuses on the lives of three women, Tora, Frida, and Ingrid, and highlights what is denied and invisible with the instinct that detects what is missing in a society. It presents a history of a place not only through women but through women many of whom would not even make the town's records. Ekman has earned Sweden's highest literary awards, including the Selma Lagerlof Prize, the August Prize, and The Pilot Prize.