Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

The short stories in Irti (‘Away’), a first collection by Sari Vuoristo (born 1964), are often set on the beach, at sea or even in the water. The characters include ship passengers, rowers, swimmers, sun-bathers, drowning people and fish.

Vuoristo lives in the Kallio district of Helsinki, high above the city, with a clear view of the flashing lighthouse on the Suomenlinna fortress island and the ships departing for Sweden and Estonia. ‘The sea before me,’ she says, ‘perhaps it’s some classic kind of longing for freedom.’ The short stories describe states of disengagement. ‘If there is some unifying idea, then it is the realisation that it is possible to disengage from unsatisfactory situations, or to let the past go.’ More…