Lempi

Lempi

Love. Jealousy. Hate. The consequences of an action from which there is no coming back.

One summer of youthful play, and fairytale-like happiness. But then war breaks out. Viljami leaves for the front, and Lempi, who is carrying her first child, stays behind with a maidservant. When the war ends, everything has changed, forever.

Lempi is a novel with a distinctive voice, exploring love, the thirst for life, happenstance, and fate. Rytisalo’s writing is timeless yet refreshingly controlled as she narrates the tragedy that alters the lives of three individuals. Ultimately, the book illustrates how the main characters in their own stories are merely supporting roles in the lives of others.

Minna Rytisalo’s bestselling debut novel has garnered acclaim from critics and readers alike for its rich language and finely tuned tension. It was shortlisted for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, the Runeberg Prize, and the Lappi Literature Prize. It won the Blogistania Finlandia Prize, voted by Finnish bloggers as the best novel of 2016, the Thank You for the Book Prize awarded by the Finnish Booksellers’, Librarians’ and Libraries Association, and the Botnia Prize.

Rights sold

German: Hanser
Lithuanian: Alma Littera
Norwegian: Pax

Materials

Finnish edition
synopsis
reviews

Praise

“Rytisalo has created a precious tapestry where the feelings of the protagonists are timeless, depend less of place and totally fresh, as always in the best of fiction. The novel as a whole is excellently drafted and the language is amazingly balanced at all times.” –Helsingin Sanomat newspaper

“Lempi is one of the books that seem to have been created easily, as if the perfect text would just have flown from the author’s fingertips to the paper and set itself in a ready form. The novel is effortlessly stylish, a complete whole.” –Aamulehti newspaper