Finlandia award-winning writer Kristina Carlson has died

Carlson won the Finlandia prize in 1999 with his first novel To the ground (Big Dipper). The work, which originated from his own family story, tells the story of a young high school student, Lennart, who travels to Russia’s Amur region in search of his fortune in the 1860s and becomes a victim of violence there. The work describes the difficulties of rational thinking and enlightenment in Russia’s mythical Siberia.

He is himself described that his novels reflect on man’s existential relationship with life.

Helsinki Carlson, who studied general literature at the university, worked for more than twenty years as a journalist at Suomen Kuvalehti before becoming a freelance writer and journalist in 1996.

He did reportages, author interviews, criticisms and essays for the magazine, among other things.

Carlson was also known for the 12-piece Years-from the series of children’s books (Gummerus, 1996–1999), which she wrote under the name Mari Lampinen.

His first work, a collection of poems Dim lightCarlson had already published in 1986.

HS:n in the interview in 1999, Carlson described writing his first novel as a journey into his imagination and a great pleasure.

“I had a great feeling of freedom when I wrote the first version. Having interviewed many authors myself, I know that many have the same feeling when they start writing. Over the course of the day, you experience a surprise: Is this what happened? You notice that you are writing something that you have not even thought about before. It makes writing fiction fascinating.”

The writer from Otava, who rarely published novels, was nominated for the Nordic Council’s literary prize in 2009 for his novel Mr. Darwin’s gardener and in 2022 with his novel Eunuch.

Mr. Darwin’s gardener was also nominated for the Runeberg Award. It received the State Prize for Literature and the Thank you for the book medal.

Carlson was the author of historical and philosophical novels. He is often photographed men in the turmoil of history.

In mixing faith, science, the sacred and the everyday In Mr. Darwin’s Gardener (2009) Charles Darwin gardener Thomas Davies’s wife has just died, the children are sick and the villagers are hunkering down. William N. in the diary (2011) the old lichen scientist William Nylander freezes in his apartment in Paris, sick and bitter, recounting his relationships and life experiences.

In the eunuch (2020) old age and memories were present again. The novel is about Wang Wei, a fully-served court eunuch, who reflects on his life in Song Dynasty China in the 12th century. In his work, Carlson studied loneliness, humanity and the individual’s relationship with society.

Carlson’s the third novel Diary of William N was also a candidate for Finlandia in 2011.

Critic Helena Ruuska has described Carlson’s novels in HS as “small works of art that demand a lot from the reader, but reward the effort”.

When HS organized last year, in a poll looking for the 100 best books of the 21st century, experts voted two of Carlson’s novels into the list.

On the 30th place was Mr. Darwin’s gardenerwhich was described with the phrases: “A pearl of prose polished to perfection, whose polyphonic narrative charms and astonishes” and “One of the most beautiful novels written in the Finnish language. A small big story about the history of science.”

Ranked 78th Diary of William N.

”Diary of William N is a philosophical stance against fuss and noise. Carlson’s well-honed sentences are not disposable stuff, but are savored long after reading,” Helena Ruuska once wrote about the work in his assessment.