Backlight

A Finnish masterpiece of autofiction... Saisio's Helsinki trilogy is a dreamy, complex and therefore so very human portrait of the formation of a great artist

A Finnish masterpiece of autofiction... Saisio's Helsinki trilogy is a dreamy, complex and therefore so very human portrait of the formation of a great artist

Entirely irreverent, witty and impressionistic. Saisio's gift is to render this autobiographical history as freshly as if it happened yesterday ... a seminal work of Nordic artistry

This is both family history and contemporary political history, sexual self-discovery and artist biography… moving and clever, funny and beautiful

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

Like Annie Ernaux but funny

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.