When I Forgot

Elina Hirvonen

Original title: Että hän muistaisi saman

Author: Elina Hirvonen

Published: 2005

Publisher: WSOY

Genre: Literary Fiction

Pages: 159

Reading material:

English edition 

Nominated for the Finlandia Prize!

Rights sold in 10 territories!

In Elina Hirvonen’s accomplished debut, a young journalist named Anna Louhiniitty is trying to come to terms with the trauma of her past: the years she has spent trying to protect her mentally ill older brother, Joona, and the generational trauma she has inherited from her family and the legacy of WWII. She is sitting in a café, attempting to read Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, given to her by her lover Ian, a visiting lecturer from the U.S. It’s just over a year after 9/11, and as Anna processes her memories, she also tells us Ian’s story, who has suffered his own trauma as a bullied child with a father who succumbed to mental illness in the Vietnam War. In Hirvonen’s lucid prose, Anna grapples with her painful memories, as well as those of Ian and her family, and slowly begins to find the words to name her experiences and accept them. As she ends her quiet afternoon in the café, she knows she can go on, one day at a time.

About author

Elina Hirvonen

Elina Hirvonen is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker whose novels have been translated into many languages. Liesl Schillinger praised Hirvonen´s debut novel, When I Forgot, on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, and the novel also received positive reviews from The Independent, The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Globe and Mail.

Hirvonen has received the Kalevi Jäntti Prize and the Nuori Aleksis Prize, and has been nominated for Finlandia Prize and Debut Prize.

Her new novel, The Logbook of Love, is published in Finland in August 2023. The Logbook of Love is the first part of a trilogy of novels that create their world through conversations.


Bibliography


2023, Literary Fiction

Elina Hirvonen

The Logbook of Love


2023, Chapter Books (3-6 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

The Rescuers Julia and Charlie


2021, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

Charlie and the Wombat Warriors


2021, Chapter Books (3-6 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

Princess Rascal and the Quarrel Spell


2020, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

Julia & P.A.L


2019, Chapter Books (3-6 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

Princess Rascal and The Potty Words


2019, Literary Fiction

Elina Hirvonen

Red Storm


2017, Chapter Books (3-6 Years)

Elina Hirvonen

Princess Rascal


2015, Literary Fiction

Elina Hirvonen

When Time Runs Out


2005, Literary Fiction

Elina Hirvonen

When I Forgot