Tommi Kinnunen

Tommi Kinnunen (b. 1973) was born in Kuusamo, north-east Finland and currently lives in Turku, where he works as a Finnish literature school teacher. His debut novel, Where Four Roads Meet has dominated the charts in Finland ever since its publication and has sold over 90,000 units to date. The novel was awarded the Best Novel of 2014 Prize by the Jury of the Finnish Grand Journalism Prize as well as the Thank You for the Book Prize by the Finnish Booksellers’ Association. It was also shortlisted for both the Finlandia Prize for Fiction and the Best Debut of the Year Prize.

Kinnunen’s second novel, The Light Behind the Eyes was published in 2016 to glowing reviews and it immediately made the top of Finland’s bestseller list, with sales of 52,000 copies to date. The Glass River, his hotly-anticipated third novel, set in a community of glass factory workers in the aftermath of the war, was published in 2018. An instant bestseller, it has sold over 40,000 copies.

Defiance, his fourth novel, is set in the afternath of WWII and follows a group of Finnish women who find themselves on the wrong side of history as they return home from Northern Norway. It has sold over 90,000 copies to date.

Prizes and nominations

2022, Mikael Agricola Medal
2020, Winner of Finnish bookseller Suomalainen Kirjakauppa’s Book of the Year Prize
2020, Winner of the Minna Canth Prize
2020, Nominated for the Finlandia Prize
2018, WSOY Literary Foundation Prize
2016, Shortlisted for the Finlandia Prize for Fiction
2016, The Readers’ Finlandia Prize Favourite to Win
2016, Shortlisted for the Europese Literatuurprijs (The Netherlands)
2015, Thank You for the Book Prize by the Finnish Booksellers’ Association
2015, Best Book of 2014 Prize by the Grand Finnish Journalism Prize
2015, Young Aleksis Prize
2014, Shortlisted for the Finlandia Fiction Prize
2014, Shortlisted for the Best Debut of the Year Prize