Backlight by Pirkko Saisio

Backlight by Pirkko Saisio

'A Finnish masterpiece of autofiction... a dreamy, complex and therefore so very human portrait of the formation of a great artist' Financial Times

A riveting, funny coming-of-age story: the second volume in Pirkko Saisio's award-winning Helsinki trilogy

Teenaged Pirkko can’t decide which she hates most: God, her communist father, or her growing breasts. Grandpa has moved into the room long promised to her, and Mother, overworked and distant, tries to keep the peace between her headstrong daughter and husband. It's 1960s Finland and Pirkko has fun getting into trouble. That is, until her teacher suggests she might have what it takes to be a real writer. Then the historic summer of 1968 arrives, which Pirkko spends working at a Swiss orphanage where no one understands her and, as much as her family drive her mad, she’s homesick for the first time.

As the world shifts and swirls around her, Pirkko must make sense of it all – including her own sexual identity. A funny, unique coming-of-age story and an intimate portrait of a life lived in language, Backlight is the second volume in Pirkko Saisio's award-winning Helsinki trilogy.

Like Annie Ernaux but funny -- Irène Bluche * rbbKultur *
This is both family history and contemporary political history, sexual self-discovery and artist biography… moving and clever, funny and beautiful * NZZ am Sonntag, Best Books of the Century *
If you love Deborah Levy, you'll adore Pirkko Saisio * Le Masque et la plume *
Long an object of study in Finland, Saisio’s work is beginning to gain more global recognition now, cementing her place in the canon of autofiction that also includes the Nordic writers Karl Ove Knausgaard and Tove Ditlevsen -- Niina Pollari * Los Angeles Review of Books *

Pirkko Saisio (born 1949) is one of Finland’s most celebrated writers as well as an actor and theatre director. The author of numerous novels, plays and scripts for film and television, Saisio has been nominated for the Finlandia Prize seven times, winning it in 2003. She has, among other awards, received the Aleksis Kivi Prize and the State Literature Award. Backlight is the second volume in her Helsinki trilogy, preceded by Lowest Common Denominator and followed by The Red Book of Farewells. Mia Spangenberg translates from Finnish, Swedish and German. She is the winner of the Nadia Christensen Prize for her translation of Lowest Common Denominator.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780241730072
ISBN 10	0241730074
Title	Backlight
Author	Pirkko Saisio
Series	Penguin International Writers
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Books Ltd
Year published	2026-02-05
Number of pages	276
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.