Tove Jansson
Life, Art, Words
Tove Jansson achieved fame as the creator of the Moomins, yet remarkably, the Moomins were only part of the prodigious creative output of this Finnish-Swedish writer and artist. Weaving together the many threads of her rich, complex life, Boel Westin relies on numerous conversations with Jansson and unprecedented access to her journals, letters, and personal archives to present an engrossing and comprehensive review of the life and world of Scandinavia’s best-loved author.
Tove Jansson was a genius, a woman of profound wisdom and great artistry.
Philip Pullman
Tove Jansson achieved fame as the creator of the Moomins, beloved by generations of readers around the world. Remarkably, the Moomins were only part of the prodigious creative output of this Finnish-Swedish writer and artist. Jansson’s work also includes short stories and five novels for adults, as well as paintings, murals, and book illustrations. In this acclaimed biography, Boel Westin relies on numerous conversations with Jansson and unprecedented access to her journals, letters, and personal archives to present an engrossing and comprehensive review of the life and world of Scandinavia’s best-loved author.
As Westin’s meticulous research makes clear, Jansson’s artistic and literary works reflected what was most important to her: the love of family and nature and the desire to pursue her art. Guided by her personal motto, “Love and work,” Jansson seized both with uncompromising joy. And while her romantic relationships with men proved unfulfilling, she found those with women—especially with her longtime partner, the artist Tuulikki Pietilä—both grounding and inspiring.
Westin weaves together the many threads of Jansson’s rich, complex life: an education interrupted to help her family; the bleak war years and her emergence as a painter; the decades of Moominmania across books, newspaper comic strips, merchandise, and adaptations; her later fictions, including her popular The Summer Book; and her time with Pietilä on the solitary island of Klovharu. Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words offers fans and admirers around the world the most complete portrait of the writer Philip Pullman described as “a genius, a woman of profound wisdom and great artistry.”
Tove Jansson was a genius, a woman of profound wisdom and great artistry.
Philip Pullman
It’s hard to describe the astonishing achievement of Jansson’s artistry.
Ali Smith
Tove Jansson is one of the greatest children’s writers there has ever been.
Sir Terry Pratchett
An affectionate account of how an anti-fascist visionary created the hugely popular tales.
The Guardian
Jansson's reputation has arguably rested as strongly on pared, magical prose for adult readers as on her children's stories. But Westin shows that this division is inappropriate; Tove's unique imagination and art pervade both.
The Independent
Boel Westin writes with a genuine love and admiration for her subject matter that bubbles up from the page. It’s difficult not to let yourself get caught up and carried along by her unbridled enthusiasm.
The Newtown Review of Books
This is a model biography, racy, unprurient, insightful, delightfully illustrated, true to its subject but also true to its own cleverly modulated narrative.
The Herald
