If you want to escape the boring reality, set foot in the Eastern Lapland of Finnish author Juhani Karila, a phantasmagorical world where the brutality of existence in this wild and lost place at the end of the world rubs shoulders with a populated universe. supernatural creatures with which humans must coexist.
Despite the writing that touches the fantastic and magical realism, we are far from the fairy tale in Small pike fishing, Karila’s first novel, which was a huge success in Finland and which can be discovered for the first time in French thanks to La Peuplade.
We follow the grueling quest of Elina, an enigmatic character who returns each year to her native Lapland to fish the only pike in the State of the Stake, near the family home. Why is catching this fish a matter of life and death for her that will ultimately lead her to face her first love, Jousia? The reader will discover it over the pages. This gloomy carnival-like novel is filled with colorful characters, which we discover in particular through the eyes of Janatuinen, an inspector who came from the South to investigate a murder story, who will see her certainties about reality deeply shaken. This is without counting, of course, the other creatures that we meet there: the merfolk, a sadistic water genius, the mayhem and their curses, moths obsessed with humans or the floche, a spirit which passes by. ‘one body to another with the sole goal of stuffing yourself, Gargantua style. Combining initiatory quest and detective story, this unclassifiable, funny and exuberant book is truly mind-blowing!
Small pike fishing
Juhani karila
Translated from Finnish by Claire Saint-Germain
The People