Loukko by 
We have happy news as PINE BARK by Tommi Kinnunen has been nominated for the Eeva Joenpelto award! The Eeva Joenpelto Award is awarded in Finland to a work published in one of the domestic languages, whose depiction of human nature is psychologically perceptive, vivid, and in‑depth, and which examines the intersections of identity, roots, and locality in a distinguished and linguistically impactful manner. The award is worth 10,000 euros.
This is what the award jury says about the book:
“Tommi Kinnunen’s novel Pine Bark delves into the partisan attacks carried out by the Soviet Union on the Finnish side during the Continuation War, getting right to the core, painfully and relentlessly, sparing neither its characters nor the reader. Through a tightly woven narrative, Kinnunen masterfully opens up a slice of our silenced recent history. The impact of an untreated and carefully concealed trauma on later generations is rendered with understated conviction.”
Congratulations Tommi! Pine Bark was also nominated for the Finlandia prize in 2024, Botnia award in 2024, and Lapland Literature award in 2025. Pine Bark won the Readers’ Favorite of the Finlandia Prize of 2024, and received the Adlibris Prize of 2024!
REQUEST MATERIALS FOR PINE BARK HERE
A person cannot return to being who they once were without knowing who they have been.
In 2001, three siblings – Martti and twin sisters Eeva and Marja – meet in a small village in Northern Finland. Their mother Laina, an old woman who has been through the Second World War, is dying and the children have gathered to arrange the funeral. Even though the siblings have always been on good terms, Martti has always felt aloof, the odd man out. All of them reminisce about their childhood, but Martti remembers things slightly differently from his sisters.
As the novel progresses, the readers are transported through the decades in Laina’s story, culminating in the Soviet partisan attack during the summer of 1944 that irrevocably changed Laina’s life. She has refused to recall the events and consequently denied her children the opportunity of remembering and healing. “One can only talk about men’s war, for women’s war is soundless and forbidden.”
PINE BARK
KAARNA
WSOY 2024, 205 pp.
READING MATERIALS
English sample and synopsis
German sample
RIGHTS SOLD:
FINLAND: WSOY (orig.)
ESTONIA: Varrak
JAPAN: Shinchosha
