Tove Jansson centenary marked by Sort Of Books

Indie publisher Sort Of Books is celebrating the centenary of the birth of Moomins creator Tove Jansson next year with a host of publications.

A new authorised biography of the artist, Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Work by Boel Westin, will be out in January (£25), as well as a collection of Jansson’s short stories, The Listener (June, pb, £8.99). The publisher has also acquired a collection of Jansson’s letters, due in 2015.

Meanwhile as previously announced, Jansson’s first book for adults, Sculptor’s Daughter, will be republished in November this year, translated by Kingsley Hart and with an introduction by Ali Smith.

Jansson, who died in 2001, is best known as the author of the Moomin books, the first of which, The Moomins and the Great Flood, was published in 1945. It was the next two titles, Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll, published in 1946 and 1948, that established her fame in the UK and internationally. Beginning with the semi-autobiographical Bildhuggarens dotter (Sculptor’s Daughter) in 1968, she also wrote six novels and five books of short stories for adults.

Westin’s biography, which has previously only been published in Sweden and Finland and is now translated for the first time, will shed light on the artist’s private life and work.

Sort Of co-publisher Natania Jansz said Westin had “incredibly privileged and never-to-be-repeated access because she became close friends of Jansson and her partner Tuulikki Pietilä, both of whom have now died, and did a considerable amount of work with them in Tove’s lifetime, going through diaries and letters and being able to discuss it with Tove.”

Sort Of “spearheaded” the Jansson revival when it republished The Summer Book and Moomin, Mymble and Little Mai after Jansson’s death, and Jansz is “very excited” to be publishing the author’s letters. “Some of these letters are very private because she was writing to a dear friend who had moved to the US, and to lovers [she] had earlier on in her life,” she said. “She had male lovers but was quite ambivalent about marriage and the dutiful role of the wife in Finnish society, and then in her late 40s [and] early 50s she had her first gay relationship, which came as an absolute revelation to her—and that was at a time when homosexuality was illegal.”

Fans of the Moomins and Jansson’s work include Philip Pullman, Philip Ardagh, Ruth Rendell, Jeanette Winterson and Ali Smith, all of whom Jansz said have been forthcoming with support for the centenary.

“She refused to conform in any way,” Jansz added. “She was very dutiful, she had a strong sense of duty to her family and helped as a breadwinner, but she absolutely insisted on being true to her own desires, visions and talent.”