{"product_id":"the-woman-who-borrowed-memories-isbn-9781590177662","title":"The Woman Who Borrowed Memories","description":"An NYRB Classics Original\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Tove Jansson was a master of brevity, unfolding worlds at a touch. Her art flourished in small settings, as can be seen in her bestselling novel \u003ci\u003eThe Summer Book\u003c\/i\u003e and in her internationally celebrated cartoon strips and books about the Moomins. It is only natural, then, that throughout her life she turned again and again to the short story. \u003ci\u003eThe Woman Who Borrowed Memories\u003c\/i\u003e is the first extensive selection of Jansson’s stories to appear in English. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMany of the stories collected here are pure Jansson, touching on island solitude and the dangerous pull of the artistic impulse: in “The Squirrel” the equanimity of the only inhabitant of a remote island is thrown by a visitor, in “The Summer Child” an unlovable boy is marooned along with his lively host family, in “The Cartoonist” an artist takes over a comic strip that has run for decades, and in “The Doll’s House” a man’s hobby threatens to overwhelm his life. Others explore unexpected territory: “Shopping” has a post-apocalyptic setting, “The Locomotive” centers on a railway-obsessed loner with murderous fantasies, and “The Woman Who Borrowed Memories” presents a case of disturbing transference. Unsentimental, yet always humane, Jansson’s stories complement and enlarge our understanding of a singular figure in world literature.\u003cp\u003e\"[Jansson] writes about these things with sparkling wit and a quirky sensibility.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Complex, intriguing and haunting, Jansson's unusual short fiction is bound to enchant an English-speaking audience just as it did a Swedish-speaking one many years ago.\" —\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jansson’s short stories are as yet unacknowledged small masterworks.” —Ali Smith\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“They are tough as good rope, [Jansson’s stories], as smooth and odd and beautiful as sea-worn driftwood, as full of light and air and wind as the Nordic summer.”—Philip Pullman\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “It could be said that everything she wrote is, in one way or another, about the creative interactions between art and reality or art and nature.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The Moomin books, and the years [Jansson] spent writing them, evidently stayed with her; the result was a stirring art, both light and dark, consoling and disturbing, spare and intricate. A simplicity of expression belies the mystery of Jansson’s art—ostensibly plain, teeming with profound delights and worries—all of which this reader’s stunted, sad-girl soul is grateful to have discovered.” —Sonya Chung, \u003ci\u003eThe Millions\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Twenty-six spare, slyly off-kilter stories…consider loneliness, family, aging and creative experience, sometimes all together…Windows crop up often in Jansson’s stories, reflecting the transparent wall between her lonely characters and their worlds but also Jansson’s expression of intangible thoughts and feelings with lucent prose.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The unique Swedish-speaking Finnish author Jansson, a daughter of two artists, continues to dazzle in singular narratives filtered through her sharp wit and beguiling imagination.” —Eileen Battersby, \u003ci\u003eIrish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eTove Jansson\u003c\/b\u003e (1914–2001) was born in Helsinki into Finland’s Swedish-speaking  minority. Her father was a sculptor and her mother a graphic designer  and illustrator. Winters were spent in the family’s art-filled studio  and summers in a fisherman’s cottage in the Pellinge archipelago, a  setting that would later figure in Jansson’s writing for adults and  children. Jansson loved books as a child and set out from an early age  to be an artist. Her first illustration was published when she was  fifteen years old; four years later a picture book appeared under a  pseudonym. After attending art schools in both Stockholm and Paris, she  returned to Helsinki, where in the 1940s and ’50s she won acclaim for  her paintings and murals. From 1929 until 1953 Jansson drew humorous  illustrations and political cartoons for the left-leaning anti-Fascist  Finnish-Swedish magazine \u003ci\u003eGarm\u003c\/i\u003e, and it was there that what was to become  Jansson’s most famous creation, Moomintroll, a hippopotamus-like  character with a dreamy disposition, made his first appearance. Jansson  went on to write about the adventures of Moomintroll, the Moomin family,  and their curious friends in a long-running comic strip and in a series  of books for children that have been translated throughout the world,  inspiring films, several television series, an opera, and theme parks in  Finland and Japan. Jansson also wrote eleven novels and short-story  collections for adults, including \u003ci\u003eThe Summer Book\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe True Deceiver\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eFair Play\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Woman Who Borrowed Memories \u003c\/i\u003e(available  as NYRB Classics). In 1994 she was awarded the Prize of the Swedish  Academy. Jansson and her companion, the artist Tuulikki Pietilä,  continued to live part time in a cottage on the remote outer edge of  Pellinge until 1991.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThomas Teal\u003c\/b\u003e has translated many of Tove Jansson’s works into English, beginning in the 1970s with \u003ci\u003eThe Summer Book \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eSun City \u003c\/i\u003eand more recently, \u003ci\u003eThe True Deceiver\u003c\/i\u003e (2009, winner of the Best Translated Book Award) and\u003ci\u003e Fair Play\u003c\/i\u003e (2011, winner of the Bernard Shaw Prize for translation from the Swedish). He lives in Massachusetts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSilvester Mazzarella\u003c\/b\u003e is a translator of Italian and Swedish literature. For many years he  lived in Finland, where he taught English literature at the University  of Helsinki. His most recent translation from the Swedish is T\u003ci\u003eove Jansson: Life, Art, Words by Boel Westin\u003c\/i\u003e (2014). He now lives in Canterbury, England.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLauren Groff \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of the novels \u003ci\u003eArcadia \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Monsters of Templeton\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eDelicate Edible Birds\u003c\/i\u003e, a story collection. Her work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHarper’s\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic Monthly\u003c\/i\u003e,  as well as in the Pushcart Prize, PEN\/O. Henry, and Best American Short  Stories anthologies. She lives in Gainesville, Florida.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44866525561061,"sku":"NP9781590177662","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590177662.jpg?v=1767742284","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-woman-who-borrowed-memories-isbn-9781590177662","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}