©Jonne Räsänen/Otava

Jukka Viikilä: Heavenly Reception

Winner of the Finlandia Prize 2021.

Author Jan Holm is undergoing urgent surgery: the blood in his heart has been circulating in the wrong direction for who knows how long. After leaving the hospital, Holm publishes a personal novel of which everyone will soon have an opinion.
Heavenly Reception is a novel of a thousand subjects and persons with a strong personal core, a commentary, research, glossary, feedback and google search, a wild explanation work and, above all, a polyphonic story about the readers of Helsinki who in return tell about the events in their lives and reading Heavenly Reception. The text is fragmentary, both confusing and well-managed, but isn’t a challenge to read thanks to the dazzling language. A work about loneliness, serious illness and metafiction.

Original title: Taivaallinen vastaanotto. Otava 2021, 377 pp.
Foreign rights: Rights & Brands, rightsandbrands.com