The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

In The Summer Book Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer--its sunlight and storms--into twenty-two crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia's grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. The grandmother is unsentimental and wise, if a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and volatile, but she tends to her grandmother with the care of a new parent. Together they amble over coastline and forest in easy companionship, build boats from bark, create a miniature Venice, write a fanciful study of local bugs. They discuss things that matter to young and old alike: life, death, the nature of God and of love. On an island, thinks the grandmother, everything is complete. In The Summer Book, Jansson creates her own complete world, full of the varied joys and sorrows of life. Tove Jansson, whose Moomintroll comic strip and books brought her international acclaim, lived for much of her life on an island like the one described in The Summer Book, and the work can be enjoyed as her closely observed journal of the sounds, sights, and feel of a summer spent in intimate contact with the natural world. The Summer Book is translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal.

Finnish writer, artist, and political cartoonist Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is best known for her books about the Moomins, adventurous, amusing cartoon trolls who had much in common with their bohemian, nature-loving author and, it seems, shared many of her family's traits. She is also the author of eleven novels and short-story collections for adults, including The Summer Book and The True Deceiver.

Boel Westin is professor of literature at Stockholm University and author of the biography Tove Jansson: Life, Words, Art. She is chairman of jury for the world's largest children's literature prize, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

Helen Svensson was a literary manager at Schildts Forlag Publishers for thirty years where she was Jansson's last editor.

Sarah Death is a prizewinning literary translator, mainly from Swedish, with some forty translated titles to her name.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781590172681
ISBN 10	159017268X
Title	The Summer Book
Author	Tove Jansson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The New York Review of Books, Inc
Year published	2008-05-20
Number of pages	184
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.