Jari Järvelä
Jari Järvelä (b. 1966) has written novels, short stories, plays and an opera libretto. His 2007 novel Romeo and Juliet was a critical success, Finlandia prize and Runeberg prize nominee, and one of the books nominated for the 2009 Nordic Council Literature Prize.
Written by Jari Järvelä
Château Inkeroinen
Château Inkeroinen is like the world-class Finnish wine that the winemaker in its title story dreams of: ”Elegant, voluptuous, silkily tarry, complex, refined, with a distinct Finnish note.“.
The tiny woman in braids from I’d Like to Burn a Church is prepared to resort to arson and bloodshed to become famous. In The Age of Genius, the Renaissance-crazy employee of a Finnish art museum goes to Florence to make a deal to bring Michelangelo’s masterwork to Finland. In XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX, two young couples take a nocturnal boat ride across autumn seas to a closed Russian military island, where one of the expedition member’s grandfathers has buried a treasure over half a century earlier.
The nine tales in Jari Järvelä’s Château Inkeroinen will not leave you cold; rather, they leave an exceptionally long, intense finish on the palate.
Written by Jari Järvelä
A Better World
A Better World is a novel about contemporary Europe, a story about the desperate struggle of individuals to belong to a community, about the interplay between destruction and hope in people’s lives.
The first narrator of the novel is Naïmi, a young refugee from Bagdad, making the difficult journey through Europe with her small child. Her one dream is to see the Ishtar Gate, the ancient processional gate through the city walls, brought to the Pergamon museum in Berlin in the early 1900s. It is the symbol of the glory days of legendary Babylon, the ancient melting pot of civilizations, which still represents for contemporary Iraqis an era of bygone greatness and a promise of a better world.
The second narrator is a Finnish minister, sensationally fired from his position for racist comments. He tries to clear his name by starting his own campaign against racists. He adopts a refugee girl as the face and tool of his campaign, using her to try to build his brave new world.
The third main character is a sculptor. His story is told through a series of love letters written in the Berlin of the 1920s–1930s. He has moved there from stagnant Finland, hoping to launch his career as an artist. Willing to do anything for success, he seeks menial labour at a museum, assembling the Ishtar Gate from millions of tile shards.
Praise:
“The subjects apply to this moment, the method is evocative and conforms precisely to the currents of the time. Despite its peculiar lightness and humour, this is a frighteningly serious novel.”– Parnasso
Written by Jari Järvelä
Zombie
Rights sold: Norwegian
When south and north are juxtaposed, it’s a matter of life and death, just like in football.
”Bon giornu, matri. I’ve gotten a job at a piz- zeria here in the Upcountry. The walls are decorated with machine guns. The owner wants me to call him Don Juho, Fuck Fuck Fucketty Fuck. He’s nothing more than the chubby, orange-haired son of a religion teacher. I haven’t told him yet that I’ll be killed if I come back to Palermo. I figure it’s part of the deal to lie, just like the pizzas I toss here lie about being pizzas.”
Zombie is the story of a journalist who gets mixed up in the wrong crowd in his homeland. In revenge he is sent to the land of sleet and slush as a sports journalist, even though he can’t really see the ball because of all the snow. He ends up working at the local pizzeria, finds himself a woman of few words, and eventually decides to return to his homeland.
Jari Järvelä’s novel is a rough-around-the-edges story of the differences between cold and hot countries, of sun and the lack of it. It walks a tightrope along the border between life and death, accompanied by the clatter of guns, love, and pizzas somewhere in the space between Sicily and Finland.
Written by Jari Järvelä
What Are Black Girls Made of?
A young girl’s intense and unique survival story
Katariina Hämäläinen, better known as Stack the Spider, has been black since her early childhood. Like her father, she is a chimney sweep. Stack’s talent in the job is down to her unexceptionally flexible body structure. Even now she is telling her life story from the inside of a bread oven. It’s quite an accomplishment to fit into one – something every 18 year old would not manage. Not that Stack has actually chosen to go inside it. Absolutely not. It is Mr Murderer who has pushed her in. He murdered Stack’s mother and soon he is going to kill Stack.
“What are black girls made of?” is an intense survival story covered in black humor and soot, and washed clean by the sights of Helsinki from the rooftops. The narrator is a young girl who has been brought up by her father, several mothers and one soot-fearing sister. From the 60’s through to the 80’s the attics and rooftops form the wonderous stage where Stack’s life is played out. It is where she was first conceived, and where the rest of her life’s most cataclysmic events take place.
Written by Jari Järvelä
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo: Young love is the light of the earth. It is not blind; it is an all-seeing eye. It is stronger than death; bare your heads and kneel before it. There’s no point complaining if you’re left in its path and the tracks run over you. It’s your own fault.
Romeo and Juliet is a story of omnipotence and escape. It is a novel about young love, skiing across fresh snow, tanks, holes in the ice and Grandma’s bedroom, decorated with icicles.
Romeo and Juliet is Jari Järvelä’s ninth novel, which was a critical success, Finlandia prize and Runeberg prize nominee and was one of the books nominated for the 2009 Nordic Council Literature Prize.
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