Today is a day for rejoice, albeit with a hint of regret. Regret that my childhood best buddy Tomas Espedal was passed over for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize again today. Rejoice, however, in the nomination itself, even though he received a 2006 nomination, too. And, but not least, because it is our daughter’s seventh birthday.
Ample cause for celebration, in other words. With regards to Tomas, I also find solace in the fact that he did receive the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature 2009, awarded just a few weeks ago.
This year’s Nordic Council Literature Prize winner however, is the Finnish author Sofi Oksanen, for her work “Puhdistus” (“Cleansing”).
Sofi Oksanen (born 1977) shows her full strength with her third novel “Puhdistus”. In a rich and expressive language she weaves a specific historical event, the Soviet occupation of Estonia, with a burning topical global contemporary theme – trafficking around the Baltic Sea.
The Adjudication Committee wrote:
Sofi Oksanen’s novel ‘Puhdistus’ (‘Cleansing’) takes place in two periods of time in Estonia, but its themes of love, treachery, power and powerlessness are timeless. ‘Puhdistus’ vibrates with tension: unspoken secrets and deeply shameful deeds stretch out across the book like a web and compel the reader to keep reading. With a rare precise and apposite language Oksanen describes what history does to individuals and history’s pervasion in the present.
The nominations were:
From Denmark:
Peter Laugesen, Fotorama
Ida Jessen, Børnene
From Finland:
Sofi Oksanen, Puhdistus
Monika Fagerholm, Glitterscenen
From Iceland:
Einar Kárason, Ofsi
Steinar Bragi, Konur
From Norway:
Karl Ove Knausgård, Min kamp1
Tomas Espedal, Imot kunsten
From Sweden:
Steve Sem-Sandberg, De fattiga i Lodz
Ann Jäderlund, Vad hjälper det en människa om hon häller rent vatten över sig i alla sina dagar
From the Faroe Islands:
Gunnar Hoydal, Í havsins hjarta
No nominations were submitted from the Greenland or the Sami Language Area this year.
The prize, worth DKK 350,000, will be awarded during the Nordic Council’s Session in Reykjavik at the beginning of November 2010.
Revelation postponed
I was planning on revealing a secret from our childhood days to Tomas, in the event that he won. But it’ll have to wait until he does – which, inevitably, he will.
P.S. Appropriately enough we’re entering a holiday named passover in Judaism, which could explain Tomas’s very recent misfortune.
Photos: Acclaimed Norwegian author Tomas Espedal (Photographer: Helge Skodvin, 2005) and Finnish author Sofi Oksanen (Photographer: Toni Härkönen).