Location: Hietaniemi Cemetery, Helsinki, Finland
Photo taken by: Joonas J.
Buy books by Tove Jansson
Finish novelist, best remembered for her series of Moomin books – stories for children that involve a family of trolls who are white, round and furry in appearance, with large snouts that make them vaguely resemble hippopotamuses.
She was born in Helsinki into a family of artists. She studied at Stockholm Art School and the Finnish Art Academy. She considered her painting to be as important as her work as an author. As well as illustrating her own books she also illustrated translations of The Hobbit and Alice in Wonderland.
Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated her first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, in 1945. This first book was hardly noticed, but the next Moomin books, Comet in Moominland (1946) and Finn Family Moomintroll (1948), made her famous. Her fame spread quickly and she became Finland's most widely read author abroad. In 1966 she was received the Hans Christian Andersen Award.
Jansson continued painting and writing for the rest of her life, although after Moominvalley in November Tove Jansson stopped writing about Moomins and started writing for adults. Sommarboken (The Summer Book) is the best known of her adult fiction translated into English. Her Moomin books have been translated into 33 languages and after the work of Mika Waltari; they are the most widely translated books from Finland.
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