True
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Elsa, a well-known child psychologist, is dying of cancer and has arranged to be at home during her last months. Her granddaughter Anna is caring for Elsa and one day discovers a mysterious old dress in a closet. It belonged to a young woman, Eeva, who had worked for the family as a nanny decades before but whom they hadn’t spoken about in many years. Anna slowly pieces together Eeva’s story, including her long affair with Anna’s grandfather, and a family cover-up comes to light. In imagining Eeva’s life, Anna begins to understand the tragedies of her own.
True is a psychological drama that explores the nature of truth, lies, memory, and how stories have the ability to bend and change with time. Riikka Pulkkinen, a young Finnish literary talent, depicts the bonds and traumatic schisms of three generations with virtuosic prose and storytelling skill.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Lola
Rogers
Lola Rogers is a literary translator living in Seattle. She has translated dozens of novels, short stories, poems, essays, comics, and children’s books. She is the recipient of two English PEN Awards and in 2019 was a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow, for a translation of The Death of Orvar Klein, by Daniel Katz. Her translation of Johanna Sinisalo’s The Core of the Sun was awarded the 2017 Prometheus Prize. Lola serves as a translation mentor for FILI Finnish Literature Exchange and is a founding member of the Finnish-English Literary Translation Cooperative.
Lola Rogers is a literary translator living in Seattle. She has translated dozens of novels, short stories, poems, essays, comics, and children’s books. She is the recipient of two English PEN Awards and in 2019 was a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow, for a translation of The Death of Orvar Klein, by Daniel Katz. Her translation of Johanna Sinisalo’s The Core of the Sun was awarded the 2017 Prometheus Prize. Lola serves as a translation mentor for FILI Finnish Literature Exchange and is a founding member of the Finnish-English Literary Translation Cooperative.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
A griping and dramatic story of three generations. Masterfully pictured Finnish landscape and light in the background.
The National Library of Estonia