Mia Spangenberg presents 'The Red Book of Farewells' by Pirkko Saisio

Pirkko Saisio’s novel, in Mia Spangenberg’s tender translation, is a mesmerizing account of radical politics and sexual awakening.

NOTIS member Mia Spangenberg will be discussing her work in translating Finnish author Pirkko Saisio's The Red Book of Farewells. This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required in advance.

This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. 

Tickets:
This event is free to attend. Registration is required in advance.

About The Red Book of Farewells. . .
For fans of Tove Ditlevsen and Karl Ove Knausgaard, an enigmatic work of autofiction set in a time of leftist politics and criminalized sexuality.

Pirkko Saisio’s autofictional novel, in Mia Spangenberg’s tender translation, is a mesmerizing account of radical politics and sexual awakening in a series of farewells—to her mother, to the idealism of youth, to friends and lovers, and finally to her grown daughter. The novel embeds readers in a delirious Finland, where art and communist politics are hopelessly intertwined, and where queer love, still a crime, thrives in underground bars. But then one morning in 2002, on a remote island off the coast of Finland, the narrator Pirkko Saisio informs her publisher that she’s accidentally deleted her latest manuscript, The Red Book of Farewells. Playful and mysterious, The Red Book of Farewells is a work that stoically embraces the small revolutions of moving on.

Mia Spangenberg translates from Finnish, Swedish, and German into English. Her work has been published in Finland and the UK and appeared in journals such as LitHub and Asymptote. She holds a Ph.D. in Scandinavian studies from the University of Washington, Seattle, where she resides with her family.

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