Wednesday 16 April 2014

Tove Jansson

You probably know that one of my very favourite authors is Tove Jansson - but I didn't know very much about her beyond what she'd put of herself in her fiction. So I was thrilled to learn that a biography of her was going to be published by Sort Of Books - indeed, translated (by Silvester Mazzarella) as, unbeknown to me, it was actually published in 2007.

And you guessed it - I'm pointing you towards my Shiny New Books review of Boel Westin's biography of Tove Jansson!  Not only that, though - Silvester Mazzarella very kindly agreed to write a brilliant piece about translating the book.  It's a long and interesting book that I don't feel I entirely did justice to in my review, written when cold-ridden, but I always think it's difficult to write properly about a biography - because, almost by definition, they have so much, and so much variety, in them.

5 comments:

  1. Here's a question for you that, bizarrely, came up at work today during a discussion of Scandinavian authors (see, financial services isn't as illiterate as other may think!): how do you pronounce Tove?

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  2. Tove Jansson was a Swedish-speaking Finn - Swedish pronunciation is more or less too-veh with a short e on the end (as in end). Finnish o is different, so it is closer to toe-veh. Empasis on the first syllable in both cases.

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  3. I *will* read some Tove soon - promise!

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  4. I'm reading The True Deceiver and then want to read her autobiography The Sculptor's Daughter. Love her books. #TOVE100

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