When I Forgot

Nominated for the Finlandia Prize!

Rights sold in 10 territories!

In Elina Hirvonen’s accomplished debut, a young journalist named Anna Louhiniitty is trying to come to terms with the trauma of her past: the years she has spent trying to protect her mentally ill older brother, Joona, and the generational trauma she has inherited from her family and the legacy of WWII. She is sitting in a café, attempting to read Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, given to her by her lover Ian, a visiting lecturer from the U.S. It’s just over a year after 9/11, and as Anna processes her memories, she also tells us Ian’s story, who has suffered his own trauma as a bullied child with a father who succumbed to mental illness in the Vietnam War. In Hirvonen’s lucid prose, Anna grapples with her painful memories, as well as those of Ian and her family, and slowly begins to find the words to name her experiences and accept them. As she ends her quiet afternoon in the café, she knows she can go on, one day at a time.