Slovak-born Alexandra Salmela wins Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize

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By Sirpa Pääkkönen
     
      In the novel 27 or Death Makes an Artist by Alexandra Salmela, the main character Angie dreams about the Finlandia Prize and other accolades, although she does not manage to get her texts published in spite of brave efforts to do so.
      Now Alexandra Salmela is the fresh winner of the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, worth EUR 15,000. She is also a candidate for this year's Finlandia Prize.
      In the view of the Helsingin Sanomat panel, Salmela’s novel is a story of growth, and a depiction of a search for a calling, typical of a literary debut.
     
“Salmela’s artistic manner of narration and her deeply humorous frame of mind bring the novel depicting a connoisseur of the art of living onto an original path. Fundamental anxiety and a hellish family life are not diminished as topics even though they are handled through laughter”, the panel says.
      What would Angie say to this?
      “Angie would be finally satisfied that something has gone right, but this probably would not fulfil her as a person, or extinguish her obsessive yearning for fame”, Alexandra Salmela answers.
     
Salmela herself is pleased at the recognition, even though she finds it confusing to be in the public eye.
      “Writing is a lonely activity, and solitude is closer to me than fame.”
      Salmela has borrowed from her own life in building the character of Angie.
      “The original sources are from reality, but the book needs to find its own direction.”
      Two countries are something that Angie and Salmela have in common. In the novel Angie leaves Prague to establish a career as a writer in a remote village in Finland. Alexandra Salmela also moved to Finland, and currently lives with her family of four in Tampere.
     
Alexandra Salmela was born in Bratislava in 1980.
      Her father was a political commentator, and her mother worked at the Bratislava Academy of Sciences. Her family also includes a younger sister and grandparents.
      Salmela started to write as soon as she was able to reproduce letters on a piece of paper. At the age of 12 she was already writing memoirs in a fine Chinese silk notebook. At the same time, she churned out fairy tales, poems, and stories.
      “We had a two-girl poetry circle, where we read poems to each other that we had written ourselves.”
     
The independence of Slovakia from Czechoslovakia in 1993 occurred during Alexandra Salmela’s puberty.
      The revolution in the early 1990s was the start of an intense period, in which people were hanging out in parks, listening to Nirvana and The Doors. Young people were creating their own underground publications, and Salmela wrote in them.
      “It was like another Woodstock. Everybody was a friend to everyone else. Life was very free.”
      The greatest idol of the generation was Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. When he put a shotgun in his mouth, the shock was tremendous. “My eight-year-old little sister cried for a week.”
     
Kurt Cobain became a magnet of darkness in Salmela’s novel, along with the magically repetitive number 27.
      Also dying at that tender age were Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and many others.
      “Among my friends, the age of 27 became a marker of a time before which something significant needs to be achieved. After that all the disgusting things would start happening, such as work, children, and responsibilities. When friends would turn 28, we would needle them about what they have achieved. Most had not achieved anything of any significance.”
     
Salmela herself never made a conscious decision to write a novel, but in Finland she sent a short story to an anthology of works by foreign-born writers. The positive feedback that she received encouraged her to continue writing. Her novel, 27 or Death Makes an Artist, was written over a period of about two years, at a time when she was also busy working as a translator, an interpreter, and taking maternity leave.
     
The novel overflows with irony and satire. Salmela makes fun of everything that she meets. The dialogue is quite racy.
      “I believe that savage humour can come to the rescue if a story is sliding too deep into boring realism. Seriousness pulls people down. Excessively serious text will turn into something akin to an overweight arse. Distance creates irony. I also make fun of my own writing methods and my dreams.”
     
Obsessiveness is central theme of 27 or Death Makes an Artist.
      Angie wants to write a masterpiece. Pia, a housewife living in a remote village in Finland, and a strong advocate of natural living, yearns for the perfect life. These two women meet in the novel.
      “In terms of lifestyle, Angie and Pia are opposites, but they have similar objectives. Both have an obsession of achieving something unattainable and unnecessary.”
     
Telling the story from their own points of view are Mr. Pig, Kassandra the cat, and an old dented car - an Opel Astra.
      “In addition to Angie, I wanted three narrators to give objectivity to the story.”
      The spotted pig, which actually resembles a cow, arrived in Finland from Prague as a gift from a friend when Alexandra Salmela’s first child was born three years ago.
      “The little pig had a voice like something out of a children’s TV programme. I needed a naive and well-meaning narrator for the story. Everything was always all right. The pig does not understand irony, and does not know how to interpret different situations.”
     
Salmela has a new book in mind, but it has not yet taken shape.
      “There will be something related to the environment. I rarely plan anything in advance. Right now I should do some translation work that has been delayed.”
     
Salmela has lived in Finland for four years.
      Bratislava, the city of her childhood and youth, is not the same to her any more. Exciting places have been replaced by cold banks, glass palaces, and cocktail lounges.
      “The Bratislava of my youth was full of forbidden places and closed-off areas. We would go to the forbidden places if we dared. When we were in the lower grades we found a wartime dugout, which we snuck into. It was damp and exciting in there. Another place was an art nouveau building with a photo studio. We pretended that there was a brothel there. Now it is occupied by a bank.”
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 18.11.2010


Links:
  Alexandra Salmela - 27 or Death Makes an Artist (Stilton Literary Agency)

SIRPA PÄÄKKÖNEN / Helsingin Sanomat
sirpa.paakkonen@hs.fi