Happy moments with wonderful authors in Helsinki!
Internationally bestselling author Elizabeth Strout visiting Helsinki Lit Festival on May 24th with Ahlback Agency Author Sirpa Kähkönen interviewing her. At the Academic Bookstore Elizabeth Strout met her readers and signed her books for two and a half hours!
Sirpa Kähkönen is one of Finland’s most acclaimed and widely recognised contemporary authors. Her historical novels begin where source information ends. It opens the gates to experiencing the past in a sensory way; the characters live out the story as physical, sensual beings.
Kähkönen was born to a family that had been harshly treated by the history of the 1900s. The Second World War and the Civil War preceding it had wounded her family members and marked them with heavy silence and unspoken words.
She has published thirteen novels, including 36 Urns: A History of Being Wrong, which won the prestigious Finlandia Prize and has sold over 100,000 copies in Finland, with rights sold in six territories. Four of her other novels have been nominated for the Finlandia Prize, and one was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize. She has also published three works of non-fiction, one of which was nominated for the Non-Fiction Finlandia Prize, and written five plays.
In 2022, Kähkönen received the Finnish Cultural Foundation's Grand Prize for significant achievements in culture.
Awards and nominations:
Photo credit: Laura Malmivaara
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