Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen

Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen is an author who has published both poetry and prose. She has received several awards, including the Anni Swan Medal, the Kalevi Jäntti Prize, and the Finlandia Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. The main themes of her books are universal: friendships, time, body, love, and death. Her unique style embraces action but the approach is lyrical and mesmerising. Her main characters are often strong but puzzled girls on the edge of the changes during their rebel teenager years. Her novel Light, Light, Light was selected for the international IBBY Honour List, and a film adaptation written by Juuli Niemi was released in 2023. The film became widely popular and it got several prizes in the film festivals in Europe. In addition to writing books Huotarinen translates literature from Icelandic and teaches creative writing. During last four years she has been also working as a program director of Turku Book Fair, the oldest book fair in Finland.

Photo credit: Mikko Palonkorpi