The Year of the Hare (UNESCO Collection of Representative Works)

Suddenly realizing what's important in life (with the help of a bunny), a man quits his job and heads to the countryside in this internationally bestselling comic novel.  "Which of us has not had that wonderfully seditious idea: to play hooky for a while from life as we know it?" With these words from his foreword, Pico Iyer puts his finger on the exhilaratingly anarchic appeal of The Year of the Hare. While out on assignment, a journalist hits a hare with his car. This small incident becomes life-changing: he decides to quit his job, leave his wife, sell his possessions, and spend a year wandering the wilds of Finland-with the bunny as his boon companion.

The Year of the Hare

Arto Paasilinna

Peter Owen Publishers

[Translated from the Finnish by Herbert Lomas] [Foreword by Pico Iyer] When a jaded journalist saves an injured creature, the incident becomes a turning point in his life as he decides to break free from the world's constraints. Vatanen, a journalist, is feeling burned out and sick of the city. One summer evening, he and a photographer set out on an assignment, and as they drive through the country, the car hits a young hare. Vatanen leaves the car to save the injured creature, and the grateful animal adopts him. This small incident becomes a turning point in Vatanen's life as he decides to break free from the world's constraints. He quits his job, leaves his wife, and sells his possessions to travel the Finnish wilds with his newfound friend. During their farcical adventures they encounter forest fires, pagan sacrifices, military war games, killer bears, political scandals, and much more.

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Blackstone Publishing

Arriving in Northern Finland after the Second World War, Gunnar Huttunen buys a dilapidated mill on the Suukoski rapids of the Kemijoki River. An Ignatius Reilly of the Finnish 1940s, Gunnar is an eccentric outsider swimming against society’s current. Prone to rapid mood swings and a general lack of decorum, he is feared and reviled by village notables for his wayward mannermost noticeably his indulgent nighttime howling, which he gets up to when he feels the need to do something special,” and to which he is joined in delirious chorus by the local dogs. The miller’s situation rapidly spirals out of control. Gunnar is cast out of society, the villagers become his jailors and the forest his prison. A miller without a mill, Gunnar is forced to assume a hermit’s lifestyle. At once a tale of conformity and the consequences of its antithesis, The Howling Miller paints a crystalline portrait of society, its norms, and what it means to function outside of them. This is a tour de force tale told with verve, humor, and a sense of the bizarre.

The Howling Miller

Canongate U.S.

Text Publishing

Un homme heureux

France-Loisirs

Il mugnaio urlante

Ugo Guanda Editore

Den Ljuva Giftokerskan

Brombergs

Den Ylande Mjolnaren

Manpocket

Kollektivt Sjalvmord

Kollektivt Självmord

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Books by Arto Paasilinna