An elderly woman agrees to sell her life story to an author with writer's block she meets at a book fair. She needs to talk - her husband has not spoken since a family tragedy some months ago, and seven thousand euros is a lot of money.
She claims that her grown-up children are doing well, but the writer imagines less salubrious lives for them, as the downturn of Finland's economic boom begins to bite. Perhaps he's on to something.
The Human Part lays bare the absurdities of modern society in the most vicious and precise manner imaginable. But it is also a wise novel of family life, rejoicing in the little white lies we tell one another and the way we pull together in times of tragedy.
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Kari Hotakainen was born in 1957 in Pori, Finland. His breakthrough came in 1997 when he was nominated for the Finlandia Prize, which he later won in 2002. Hotakainen has also written children's plays, radio dramas, newspaper columns and television scripts.
Owen F. Witesman is a translator from Finnish and Estonian.
A novel packed with sophisticated ideas which should, like a rare delicacy, be savoured slowly.―Tribune
Simply stunning . . . Fans of Mark Haddon and Haruki Murakami will be enraptured―Time Out
Hotakainen intimately and humorously depicts a family with a strong matriarch at its centre . . . Salme's gentle homespun philosophy lingers beautifully after this quaint and quirky book is closed.―Irish Times
Funny and extremely dark . . . he paints a very dystopian picture of present-day Finland . . . Full of an intriguing weirdness and scenes that have haunted me.―BBC World Book Club
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