βIf you never see me again in life after this book is published, it is because I left to find an island of my own at last.β βAlexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
βTove Jansson was a genius, a woman of profound wisdom and great artistry.β βPhilip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials
In the bitter winds of autumn 1963, Tove Janssonβauthor of the iconic novel The Summer Book and the beloved Moomin seriesβbuilt a cabin on a treeless island in the Gulf of Finland. For thirty years, Tove and her beloved partner, Tuulikki βTootiβ PietilΓ€, lived, painted, and wrote, energized by flora, fauna, the shifting seascapes, and solitude and shifting seascapes. Janssonβs spare, quirkyΒ prose, and Tooti's subtle artwork combine to form a work of meditative beauty.Β Notes from an IslandΒ is both a beautiful chronicle of a rugged ecology and an intimate collaboration between to artists in love with each otherβand the island itself. This edition also includes Janssonβs essay The Island, described by Pulitzer Prize finalist Hernan Diaz as ββ¦a short story, an essay, and a prose poem ... the text seems to change following mysterious tides from a timeless present to an urgent past.β
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Praise for Tove Janssonβs Work
"It could be said that everything she wrote is, in one way or another, about the creative interactions between art and reality or art and nature." βThe Guardian
βItβs hard to describe the astonishing achievement of Janssonβs artistry.ββAli Smith, author of Gliff and How to Be Both
"Her style is not at all 'poetic'βquite the contrary. It is prose of the very highest order; it is pure prose. Through its quiet clarity we see unreachable depths, threatening darkness, promised treasures."βUrsula K. LeGuin,Β The Guardian
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βIf you never see me again in life after this book is published, it is because I left to find an island of my own at last.β βAlexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
βTove Jansson was a genius, a woman of profound wisdom and great artistry.β βPhilip Pullman, author of His...