Finlandia Literature Prize goes to Kjell Westö

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Author Kjell Westö is the winner of the 2006 Finlandia Prize for Literature for his novel in Swedish Där vi en gång gått ("Where We Once Went"). The Finlandia winner receives a cheque for EUR 26,000 from the Finnish Book Foundation.
      This year's winner was chosen by Professor Jyrki Nummi from a short-list of six works.
      The central milieu of the prize-winning novel is Helsinki, and the book depicts the life of some of the city's residents from the beginning of the 20th century until 1938 - the eve of the Winter War.
     
In his speech, Jyrki Nummi drew attention to the clever beginning of Westö's novel: It starts off on June 16th - Bloomsday, which is a holiday observed annually to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce and to commemorate the events in his novel Ulysses.
      Nummi noted further that Westö's ambitious novel shows the author's skillful use of the literary heritage, combined with the individual and original features of his own work.
      Swedish-speaking Westö's fourth novel soon became a favourite of both readers and critics and has already sold 50,000 copies in its Finnish translation. It has met a warm reception also in Sweden, with reviews on the day of its appearance in the four largest dailies in Stockholm. Westö's third novel, the thriller Lang, has also been published in English. Lang was also short-listed for this prize in 2002.
      Kjell Westö, who was born in 1961, began by writing poetry, and soon moved on to short stories and finally to novels. This was his fourth nomination as a Finlandia Prize candidate and his first victory.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Bo Carpelan first to win Finlandia Literature Prize twice (9.12.2005)

Links:
  Finnish Literature Information Centre: Kjell Westö

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