Look closely. Look again. This is Tainaron.
Author: Leena Krohn
Finnish original: Tainaron
Publisher: Teos, 2006 (1985)
Genre: literary fiction, modern classics
Number of pages: 135 pp.
Reading material: Finnish original, English translation
Rights sold: Bulgaria, Avgust; Croatia, Hangar 7; Denmark, Jensen & Dalgaard; Dutch, Wilde aarbeien; World English, Prime Books | Cheeky Frawg; Estonia, Aniara; French, Éditions Corti; Greece, Kastaniotis; Hebrew, Keren; Latvia, Preses Nams; Poland, Swiat ksiazki; Spanish, Nórdica Libros; Sweden, Fripress
The inhabitants of Tainaron are insect-like, but their experiences and actions seem strangely familiar. We read about them in letters whose recipient remains nameless. The writer has arrived on a white ship to a constantly changing city located in volcanic region but does not remember why. Suffering from homesickness, the writer is also enchanted by the new surroundings and its inhabitants, such as Longhorn, the suspicious Miss Pumilio, the Guardian of the Oddfellows, the Rhinoceros Beetle and the Psammotettix.
In the novel unprecedented metamorphoses are witnessed, strange coincidences are enjoyed and the possibilities of existence pondered. The descriptions are often accurate depictions of the ways of life of particular species, but at the same time allegories of our own, familiar everyday world.
Tainaron, which was first published in 1985, was the breakthrough work of the prize- winning author Leena Krohn, whose subsequent career has taken her readers on long explorations of uncharted realities. The new edition of Tainaron (2006) includes two letters that were not included in the original work.
Also available:
Things I Never Learned (2021)
Perdition (2018)
A 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)
Doña Quixote and Other Citizens (1983)
The Pelican’s New Clothes – A Story from the City (1976)
The Green Revolution (1970 | 2020)
About the author:
Leena Krohn