Merja Mäki and Harry Salmenniemi will be featured as author highlights at the upcoming Helsinki Book Fair this autumn.
Merja Mäki, author of award-winning Before the Birds and Wept Another, will be discussing her books and talking to readers on October 24th , 18.00-19.00 while Harry Salmenniemi, author of several well-loved short stories collection and of Heartmist, will be featured on October 25th, 15.30-16.30.
Author highlights are an established and appreciated way to bring readers and authors together, and are considered one of the high points of the Helsinki Fair.
Wept Another, Merja Mäki’s latest book, follows Larja, a young Karelian teacher who comes back home after a training camp. It is 1942, and peace has descended momentarily on this borderland contended between Finland and the Soviet Union, and nothing is at it was: Larja soon learns that her buabo Matja, the village’s most-respected professional lamenter, is deathly ill, and her little sister Pola carries a secret deep within her heart. As Larja cares for her ailing grandmother, she listens to the messages the trees are sending her on the northern winds and discovers that she too has the gift of wailing. However, it requires great courage to accompany the dead to the other side. After a Finnish man steps into her life, Larja finds herself again torn between two different worlds. Still, love knows no borders and the winds blow as they see fit. Can Larja answer the wind’s call and weep another day?
In Heartmist, a week before the writer’s second baby is due to be born, his firstborn gets seriously ill and is taken to the intensive care unit. The father keeps vigil by his son’s bed in the hospital and at home, observing everything around them. Things must be done without thinking. You must go on, days on end, each day filled to the brim with tasks. When his son starts to get better, the writer is grateful and surprised, and understands that he doesn’t under – stand life at all. At home, the everyday goes on with its nappies, cooking and washing. Deep feelings are impractical in the day-to-day living. They have too many dimensions. Everyday holds destruction and chaos, both of which need to be in order. Touching, poetic and warm, Heartmist is a novel of ordinary and extraordinary life, and an ode to its beauty.
Looking forward to seeing our authors on stage!