A touching story about the rather small dislocations of a rather ordinary life.
Author: Anni Saastamoinen
Finnish original: Sirkka
Publisher: Kosmos, 2019
Genre: literary fiction
Number of pages: 188 pp.
Reading material: Finnish original, English sample, English synopsis
Sirkka is a supporting character’s name. The main character always has a pretty name like Aurora, something lovely and lyrical and distinctive. Sirkka is just Sirkka–brisk, dull, and ordinary. Sirkka is the sausage gravy of names. If Sirkka were an animal, she’d be a badger, a solitary lump of black and tan hissing her way along her own narrow path.
Sirkka is the neighbour no one notices, the woman who puts a just-so-you-know note on the trash bins that says “no plastic bags in the compost”. Sirkka is the bland, conscientious woman at work whose personal life is entirely unknown to her coworkers.
Even Sirkka herself thinks she’s perfectly ordinary. It’s true that her relationship with her boyfriend ended because of one late tram, and perhaps she doesn’t live up to all of the expectations of her sparkling friend Natali or her bohemian mother, but at least she knows what she wants.
Or does she?
Anni Saastamoinen’s debut novel Sirkka is a warmly humorous and touchingly genuine story about being different, about loneliness, about how happiness and contentment can sometimes be found very near at hand Sirkka was named a Storytel audio book of the year and a Bookbeat newcomer of the year, and has garnered glowing reviews.
“In the end the tight, almost novella-length Sirkka grows larger than its page count would suggest. It is a disarmingly wise story of how contentment, rather than grand goals, may be the most radical thing you can achieve in today’s world.”
– Helsingin Sanomat newspaper
Also available:
But Then Again
About the author:
Anni Saastamoinen