We’re so very happy: author Merja Mäki has received the Pohjalainen Award for her novel Wept Another, the second set in wartime Karelia.
Author Merja Mäki has received the Pohjalainen Award for her novel Wept Another, the second set in wartime Karelia, after the successful Before the Birds. Both titles are published by Gummerus in Finland.
The Pohjalainen Award is given every other year by the Ilkka Pohjalainen newspaper, in collaboration with the Regional Councils of South Ostrobothnia and Ostrobothnia, to the best literary work with connections to the region. The jury have given Wept Another an additional special mention for its beautiful language and the chair of the jury has stated that with Wept Another Merja Mäki “has risen to join the ranks of the great Finnish storytellers”.
Wept Another follows Larja, a young woman from Eastern Karelia. It is 1942, and peace has momentarily descended on this bit of territory recently reclaimed from the Soviets by Finnish troops. Larja has been studying at a teacher training camp and upon her return to her home village she has to come to terms with the fact that nothing is as it was. As Larja cares for her ailing grandmother, she listens to the messages the trees are sending her on the northern winds and discovers that she has the gift of wailing. After a Finnish man steps into her life, Larja finds herself again torn between two different worlds. Wept Another is the story of a young woman who has grown up between two cultures on the border of two countries. It is a tale of roots and the ties that bind us, but above all, of the choices that you must make in life.
Warmest congratulations to the author, and don’t miss out on this title!
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