We are so thrilled to share with you the recent news from France: Antti Rönkä’s praised and widely discussed novel Off the Ground has recently received a splendid review in Le Monde, one of the biggest and most respected newspapers in Europe. The novel was published in France by Éditions Payot & Rivages and beautifully translated by Sébastien Cagnoli.
Le Monde stated in its review:
“Told in the first person singular, Off the Ground by the Finnish author Antti Rönkä is striking for both, the sharpness of its psychological analysis and its cruelty. It is like a dissection of a scalpel, and the one that hurts. (…) There is something in this masochist analysis that brings to mind Notes from Underground (1864) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J. D. Salinger. (…) The novel is an impressive debut that became a phenomenon in Finland.”
Off the Ground is Antti Rönkä’s strong literary debut that has gotten a tremendous amount of attention after it came out in August 2019. The novel describes the experience of shame with cutting precision, and shows how another person’s acceptance and recognition can make the weight easier to bear. The book portrays a young man’s attempts to overcome trauma and start a new, exciting student life in a society where men are not supposed to cry or show feelings in any way.
Don’t forget to have a look at a short interview with the author from HLA’s series which was also featured in Le Monde’s article and which will give you a better insight into this moving title. And here are author’s greetings from our video series.