The end of the world in variations by a master of written worlds.
Author: Leena Krohn
Publisher: WSOY, 1998 | Teos, 2010
Genre: literary fiction
Number of pages: 329 pp.
Reading material: Finnish original, English translation
Rights sold: Bulgaria, Ednorog; English, Cheeky Frawg Books; Japan, Shinhyōron; Latvia, Zinātne; Sweden, Anamma
Pereat Mundus: A Novel of Sorts tells about fears and philosophies of different ends: end of the world, end of the millennium, end of humankind, end of nature, end of work, end
of literature, end of play, end of love…
The 36 chapters or stories of the novel have all a person called Håkan in them, either as a protagonist or a supporting character. Mostly, these are different Håkans. They live in
different times and places, they are of different age, underdogs in different ways – or blessed with different sorts of successes.
All of them, however, end up facing unknown borders or doors closing on them. Pereat Mundus is a multi-layered and enigmatic work of fiction, which moves between genres and takes its readers to the border areas of the human mind. The novel was nominated for the Aristeion Award.
“Not exactly science fiction, not exactly fantasy, but some hybrid of those genres blended with literary fiction, Krohn’s tales often involve the exploration of consciousness both human and animal—and, at times, that of machines – against myth-tinged backgrounds, as with one story whose protagonist is the offspring of a human mother and ‘one of the first multi-species hybrids’.”
– Kirkus starred review
Also available:
Things I Never Learned (2021)
Perdition (2018)
Letter to Buddha (2016)
Mistake (2015)
Hotel Sapiens (2013)
Children of the Sun (2011)
False Window (2009)
My Home is Riioraa (2008)
The Bee Pavilion (2006)
Datura (2001)
Mathematical Creatures, or Shared Dreams (1992)
Umbra (1990)
Gold of Ophir (1988)
Tainaron (2006 | 1985)
Doña Quixote and Other Citizens (1983)
The Pelican’s New Clothes – A Story from the City (1976)
About the author:
Leena Krohn