The Red Book of Farewells
For fans of Claire-Louise Bennett and Eileen Myles, an enigmatic work of autofiction set in a time of leftist politics and criminalized sexuality.
Pirkko Saisio's autofictional novel, in Mia Spangenberg's tender translation, is a mesmerizing account of radical politics and sexual awakening in a series of farewells--to her mother, to the idealism of youth, to friends and lovers, and finally to her grown daughter. The novel embeds readers in a delirious Finland, where art and communist politics are hopelessly intertwined, and where queer love, still a crime, thrives in underground bars. But then one morning in 2002, on a remote island off the coast of Finland, the narrator Pirkko Saisio informs her publisher that she's accidentally deleted her latest manuscript, The Red Book of Farewells. Playful and mysterious, The Red Book of Farewells is a work that stoically embraces the small revolutions of moving on.
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Winner of the Finlandia Prize
Winner of the Aleksis Kivi Prize
"A beautifully rendered portrait of a strikingly queer life--Saisio troubles any distinction we might try to draw between the personal and the political, the remembered and the invented." --Morgan Thomas, author of Manywhere
"This Red Book of Farewells is also a book of welcoming: to life, to love, to death, to art, to revolution, to our ever-changing identities. It is hilarious and heartbreaking and like nothing I've ever read before." --Jazmina Barrera, author of Linea Nigra
"Pirkko Saisio might be the best Finnish author alive. She is wise, profound, funny, erudite, an old and precise person, and of course a divine storyteller and a master of dialogue. On top of all that, she uses the Finnish language masterfully." --Aamulehti (Finland)
"Pirkko Saisio has for a long time been a genre of her own, an author with a recognizable style, but in her late works she has crossed borders and combined genres with ever more courage." --Helsingin Sanomat
"The Red Book of Farewells is fundamentally about discovering artistic ambition and the origin of inspiration and, undoubtedly, about love, or loves. The red hue in the work is, after all, both the color of love and politics. Saisio's style and self-irony are unfailing and keep me coming back to the book over and over again." --Kirjavinkit (Finland)
"Sleek, virtuosic." --Maija Alftan, Helsingin (Finland)
"Saisio has had a major effect on the cultural atmosphere we live in." --Aleksis Kivi Prize jury
"Self-awareness--and introspection, too, for that matter, are the means by which Saisio writes literature. The stronger the writer's self comes across in the lines, the more rocky and wide open the text becomes. The illusion of control crumbles and Saisio's impressive grasp of drama builds the dialogue, whose few words, yet precise rhythms, give rise to pocket-sized tragedies and comedies."--Taina Ratia, Turun (Finland)
"A beautiful song about survival. Despite the sufferings, Finnish Pirkko Saisio dissects the hidden codes of relationships. Like no other, she manages to capture the waiting at the bar, when the person one is waiting for never shows up." --Heidi von Born, Svenska Dagbladet
