
- 550 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
An in-depth, perceptive account of the unconventional life of the Moomins’ beloved creator, now available in the United States
Tove Jansson achieved fame as the creator of the Moomins, beloved by generations of readers around the world. Remarkably, the Moomins were only part of the prodigious creative output of this Finnish-Swedish writer and artist. Jansson’s work also includes short stories and five novels for adults, as well as paintings, murals, and book illustrations. In this acclaimed biography, Boel Westin relies on numerous conversations with Jansson and unprecedented access to her journals, letters, and personal archives to present an engrossing and comprehensive review of the life and world of Scandinavia’s best-loved author.
As Westin’s meticulous research makes clear, Jansson’s artistic and literary works reflected what was most important to her: the love of family and nature and the desire to pursue her art. Guided by her personal motto, “Love and work,” Jansson seized both with uncompromising joy. And while her romantic relationships with men proved unfulfilling, she found those with women—especially with her longtime partner, the artist Tuulikki Pietilä—both grounding and inspiring.
Westin weaves together the many threads of Jansson’s rich, complex life: an education interrupted to help her family; the bleak war years and her emergence as a painter; the decades of Moominmania across books, newspaper comic strips, merchandise, and adaptations; her later fictions, including her popular The Summer Book; and her time with Pietilä on the solitary island of Klovharu. Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words offers fans and admirers around the world the most complete portrait of the writer Philip Pullman described as “a genius, a woman of profound wisdom and great artistry.”
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- 1 โ Iโm Busy
- 2 โ Family
- 3 โ The Embryo Artist
- 4 โ The Travelling Painter
- 5 โ A Menโs War
- 6 โ Moomin Tales and Monumental Paintings
- 7 โ The Time of the Apocalypse
- 8 โ Moomin Passion
- 9 โ Trolls and Humans
- 10 โ The Wild 1950s
- 11 โ The Troll Who Stepped Out in the Cold
- 12 โ A Need for Expression
- 13 โ The Woman Who Fell in Love with an Island
- 14 โ The Stone and the Story
- 15 โ Dreaming of a Valley
- 16 โ Journeys with Tove
- 17 โ A Time for Words
- Acknowledgments: Godparents
- Chronology
- Tove Janssonโs Published Works
- Photo Credits
- Index of Works
- Index of People
- About the Authors
- Color Plates