Loukko by 
Anna-Kaari Hakkarainen’s Eruption (Purkaus, Tammi 2014) was one of our most buzzed-about titles at this spring’s London Book Fair. We are happy to announce that an English sample of Eruption is now available, comprising the first 52 pages of the novel. A Swedish sample of the book is also available, and a German sample will be available in June.
Set on the volcanic island of Heimaey off the coast of Iceland, Eruption tells the story of brothers Kjarri and Birk, who as children meet beautiful and lonesome Vigdis on the beach. Through their formative years Kjarri, Birk and Vigdis remain inseparable, dreaming of a life that they hope will always be shared. Then childhood gives way to adulthood, love turns into lust, bonds of friendship are broken, and one of these three leaves the island – only to return when a volcano that has been silent for decades begins to erupt.
Critical highlights:
“A marvelous and stunning novel. And let it be said again: one of the most beautiful. It’s perhaps the combination of a rugged milieu and the beautiful storytelling that brought to mind a very dear book, Claudie Gallay’s The Breakers.”
–Sivulauseita (“Side sentences”) literature blog
“Hakkarainen has constructed believable and real characters, relatable in their upward struggle. Some stay behind, others leave, and each choice leaves behind a wound that has been torn open like the surface of the earth after an eruption.”
–Parnasso literary magazine, Finland
Anna-Kaari Hakkarainen (b. 1979) has an MA in Visual Culture and works as a journalist and editor. She is an eager hobbyist sailor, and loves the ocean and glaciers. Her debut novel The Net (Verkko, Tammi 2011) imagined Finland under Soviet occupation in the 1970s and 1980s. Eruption, her second book, was inspired in part by her six-month stay in Iceland in 2001.
“The landscape [of Heimaey] is more than a stage on which the action is set; everything comes back to it, and as I describe the scenery I am also describing the people living in it,” Hakkarainen told the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE in a televised interview.
Reading material:
Finnish edition
English sample
Swedish sample
English synopsis
German sample available soon!
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
Contact: info@ahlbackagency.com