The making of a bestselling author - maybe

Until about 6-7 years ago, Finland had no international pop culture success. None, zilch, nada. Much of the hit music was (and still is) in Finnish, and exporting the English-language product failed because the state didn't invest enough in it, not realizing there actually is serious money to be made from globally successful media products. And the Finnish culture admittedly has more than its share of local eccentricities that would be hard to communicate to the outside world - or so we've believed.

Things have changed of late, of course. The global metal community's endorsement of several Finnish bands, most notably Nightwish, Children of Bodom and HIM, launched a positive domino effect, and now Finns are major players not only in music but the games industry as well. But both those sectors of pop culture leave little room for local flavor.

But there may be a big exception to that rule happening right now. Estonian-born Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen has turned into a media and culture cause celebre in Finland after only three novels and one play, and her latest novel Purge is being hailed here and there in the English-speaking world as the Next Must-Read Book. The London Times said that "Sofi Oksanen has become a literary phenomenon...Purge is a flawed, brilliant piece of work that does not easily relinquish its grip on reader's imagination", and The Economist noted that ""Purge" has been a huge success in Ms Oksanen's native Finland and has won prizes across continental Europe. It deserves an equal success now that it is available for an English-speaking audience. Anyone reading this blog is presumably interested in the region, and anyone interested in the region should read this book. "

Let me emphasize: this is most unexpected. Not only because she comes from an insignificant Nordic country, but because the themes in her books are about the Baltic region and its 20th century history, the status of women in the Soviet era Estonia, and so on. Not exactly world-gripping subjects, perhaps, but it seems she's done something that usually signifies true art: she has the ability to handle very local, very personal topics in a way that reveals the universal dilemmas and moral challenges beneath. And she does this in a literary voice very much her own.

Her young age, over-the-top Goth style, sharply worded opinions and open bisexuality don't make things exactly worse, either, from the media point of view. In any case,  it will be very interesting to follow her career and see what the outside world will make of her books. Rumours say that Purge is already taken up by Hollywood; whispers of Meryl Streep in the lead role have been heard. Wait and see.

(Author photo: Toni Härkönen)