num_pages: 312
description: One morning in 2002 on an island off the coast of Finland the narrator Pirkko Saisio tells her editor shes accidentally deleted her latest manuscript a book called The Red Book of Farewells. Whatever that book was is gone but in its place is this story of a life: her life. And the lives of those around herfamily members student radicals actors and lesbian lovers in underground bars. Its a story of leftist in-fighting broken relationships and finding new paths. Pirkko Saisios brilliant autobiographical novel in Mia Spangenbergs tender translation is a contemporary classic of lesbian desire and politics. Composed as a series of farewellsto her mother girlfriends she thought shed spend her life with and finally her daughterthe novel guides readers through Finland in the late-twentieth century. Its a world where art and communist politics are hopelessly intertwined; queer love is an illegal force of creation and revolt; and a heart-to-heart conversation with the activist playwright Bertolt Brecht is a mere dream away. Playful and mysterious The Red Book of Farewells is a work that stoically embraces the revolutionary potential of moving on.
language: English
title: The Red Book of Farewells
publisher: Two Lines Press