Sofi Oksanen receives the Usedom Literature Prize 2023
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Loading... - Nicholas Leos
- 06 Mar 2023
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The Finnish-Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen receives the Usedom Literature Prize 2023. Her latest book "Dog Years" focuses on Olenka, a woman who moved from Tallinn to Ukraine.
Oksanen comes from northern Europe and yet sees himself as someone who grew up between West and East, between Estonian and Finnish culture. "I know the Soviet Union very well, so it wasn't difficult for me to start with 'Dog Park'. The book is mainly set in Ukraine," says Sofi Oksanen about herself and her latest novel "Dog Park". The focus of this book is Olenka, a woman who moved to Ukraine from Tallinn and made a career there in the 2000s in a company that matched rich Western clients with egg donors in the East. But Olenka loses career, money and love and later finds himself working as a cleaning lady in Helsinki.
Oksanen wanted to stimulate interest in Ukrainian culture
Sofi Oksanen says she hesitated to write a novel about Ukraine. She waited for Finnish publishers to publish novels by Ukrainian authors: "I waited and waited, but the publishers didn't do it. And I was frustrated and thought to myself: 'Obviously something has to be done'. To interest in Ukrainian culture to wake up, I might have to write about Ukraine myself." And so "Hundepark" was born - also published in German at the beginning of 2022.
Oksanen made his international breakthrough in 2008 with "Purgatory".
The author caused a sensation with her debut novel "Stalin's Cows" in 2003, followed by "Baby Jane" and in 2007 her first play "Purgatory". Her international breakthrough came in 2008 with the novel of the same name. Sofi Oksanen received several awards for "Purgatory", including the Finlandia and Runeberg awards in Finland and the Prix Femina Étranger in France.
Dealing with the history of Eastern Europe
For many years Sofi Oksanen has been dealing with the recent history of Eastern Europe, especially that of the states of the former Soviet Union. As early as 2014, she said in an extensive NDR interview on the role of Stalin and Putin in Russia: "Stalin is currently one of the most popular heroes in Russia, and Stalin believed in the need for centralized power. That is why Lenin is currently not so popular like Stalin. After Stalin's death, Stalin became very unpopular, but now he's back in the place from which he had disappeared for decades. That's why Putin and his architects of Novorossiya are too fond of Stalin. They use the same methods , which they have been using for decades, centuries for propaganda." Read More…
