Representing the best
Finnish authors abroad
Finnish authors abroad
A debut novel set in the liminal days of late autumn, on the threshold between two worlds.
On the eve of Kekri, the ancient Finnish harvest festival, a strangely dressed man appears at the edge of the forest. Valpuri, who lives alone on the outskirts of a small village, takes him for a wandering beggar and offers him shelter, as custom dictates. Cold to the bone and exhausted, the mysterious stranger remains in Valpuri’s cottage for a week. In that suspended time between the old and the new year, both their lives are irrevocably changed.
Years later, Valpuri recounts the events to her brother Sigfrid, a Dominican friar. Raised among the feast days, songs, and oral traditions that mark the turning of the year, she asks him: Who remembers what we forget? Literate and educated, Sigfrid already stands on the threshold of a different world, one shaped by new ways of preserving memory and knowledge.
Richly drawing on Finnish folklore, mythology, and the history of humanity’s relationship with nature, Hallow explores memory, tradition, and the meeting point between the old world and the new.
Finnish edition
English sample & synopsis coming soon
‘Folklorist and philologist Liisa Kaski’s debut novel takes readers on a haunting journey through time to Finland during the season of Kekri. Its dense, atmospheric mood is woven from folk poetry, archaic language, and the gothic darkness of the autumn forest.’ —Eleonoora Riihinen, Helsingin Sanomat on Marras’ nomination for the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper’s debut prize
‘Hallow is a distinctive work of poetic prose, virtually powered by the magic of words, in which folk myths spring to life. The forest permeates every sentence.’ —Markku Soikkeli, Aamulehti newspaper
’As the finest novels do, Hallow gently encloses the reader within its own world, drawing us into Valpuri’s cottage, its surrounding yard, and the forest that begins at its edge, a forest that nourishes and protects, but must also be treated with caution.’ —Emilia Miettinen, Voima
