Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize goes to Satu Taskinen

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This year's Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, awarded for the best début work of the year, is to "go abroad" - the award goes to Satu Taskinen, 41, who has been living in Vienna since 1999.
      Taskinen collects the EUR 15,000 prize after her novel Täydellinen paisti (A Perfect Roast) beat out three other competitiors from out of an original entry of around sixty first works of prose and verse written during the past year.
     
The story, set in a single day, revolves about a woman who has moved to Vienna and is trying desperately to fit in to a new society.
      She tests her mettle (almost to destruction) by attempting to cook a demanding and traditional Austrian dinner for her husband and his relatives.
      Everything does not, however, go completely according to the recipe book.
     
This was the seventeenth occasion on which the prize has been awarded in its present form, following on from the J.H. Erkko Prize, also given for a first literary work, which was awarded from 1964 to 1994.
     
     
We will have more on the winner and her novel in next week's weeklies.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Slovak-born Alexandra Salmela wins Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize (23.11.2010)

Helsingin Sanomat