Great news after the Helsinki Book Fair: the yearly best debut award nominees have been announced, and Sanni Isometsä’s beautiful Anatomy of Absence is among them!
The Best Debut Prize was established by the biggest newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, in 1995, as a continuation for the previously awarded J. H. Erkko prize. The winner is awarded 15,000 euros prize. This year, the winner will be chosen out of 7 nominees and announced on the 12th of November.
Anatomy of Absence is an impressively strong debut on HLA’s list, proclaimed to be “sensational” by the Helsingin Sanomat immediately after publication. It tells a story about grief without solemnity or self-pity. In the book, the narrator, who is a midwife, suddenly loses her husband when he is just 38. The precise prose moves between you and I, addressed to the dead, then reclaimed by the living, described as breathing in and out. It is written in fragments, the way memory returns: out of order, out of proportion, arriving unbidden.
The book has drawn a lot of attention at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, so foreign rights deals are expected soon.
Congratulations to the author!