Missing passport and visa prevent author Sofi Oksanen from travelling to St. Petersburg

Poetry evening scheduled for tonight

Sofi Oksanen

print this

Author Sofi Oksanen, winner of this year’s Finlandia Prize for literature, will not be able to travel to St. Petersburg to take part in a poetry evening organised by the Finnish Consulate General in the city. The reason this time is that her passport and visa are missing.
      The Finnish poetry evening, which takes place today, is the fourth of its kind, in which young Finnish poets have read their works to a local audience.
      Oksanen, who is known primarily as a leading contemporary prose writer and playwright, was to have recited new prose poems at the event.
     
The travel agency Russian Tours says that Oksanen’s passport and visa were sent to her by express mail, according to normal practice.
      According to official records, the letter had been carried to the author’s home address on the morning of December 12th. The record shows that as the recipient was not there, the envelope was returned to the post office to be delivered during the regular delivery round.
      However, Oksanen says that she was at home, and awake, on the morning of the 12th, and did not even get a note indicating that there had been an attempt to deliver the envelope.
      She also says that there was no indication at the post office of the envelope, which was not found in spite of thorough searches.
     
Tracing the letter by reference number at the Hämeentie post office in Helsinki, Helsingin Sanomat learned on Thursday afternoon that the postal worker delivering express letters in the morning had not been able to get inside the front door of the building where Oksanen has her apartment, because the door code was unknown.
      The letter went into the day’s ordinary delivery, and was supposed to have arrived at noon the same day.
      The letter carrier recalls that two free-distribution newspapers, Etuovi and Helsingin Uutiset, appeared on the same day, which means that there was a relatively large volume of mail to be delivered.
      Oksanen says that the postal records do not have an indication that the delivery had reached its destination. She says that she carefully went through all of her mail many times, while looking for the important paper.
     
In August, Oksanen’s participation in the poetry evening was called into question because Consul General Olli Perheentupa did not want her to participate. The reason that he gave was that Oksanen is not actually a poet.
      Oksanen voiced suspicions at the time that the real reason might have been that she has written about relations between Russia and Estonia in a very critical fashion (see linked articles).


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish PEN organisation considers withdrawing from St. Petersburg poetry event (7.8.2008)
  Writer Sofi Oksanen dropped from poetry evening in St. Petersburg (6.8.2008)
  Finlandia Prize goes to Sofi Oksanen and portrait of Estonia under Soviet occupation (5.12.2008)
  Sofi Oksanen invited to St. Petersburg poetry evening after all (12.8.2008)

Links:
  Wikipedia: Sofi Oksanen

Helsingin Sanomat