Eeva Kilpi

Eeva Kilpi at the Turku Book Fair (2008)

Eeva Karin Kilpi (born February 18, 1928 in Hiitola ; actually Eeva Karin Salo ) is a Finnish writer and poet. She has been publishing novels, short stories and poetry collections since the late 1950s. The author is one of the earliest feminist voices in literature in her home country . In her work, she mainly uses elements that are based on personal experiences, including the expulsion from her home region of Karelia and life as a divorced and single woman in Finland in the 1960s and 1970s.

Life

Childhood, education and first publications

Eeva Kilpi was born in 1928 as Eeva Salo, daughter of Solmu Aulis Aimo Salo and his wife Helmi Anna Maria (birth name: Saharinen) in a Karelian village. The family was forced to leave their home region during World War II . Eeva Salo attended school in Imatra , which she graduated in 1946. She then moved to Helsinki and in 1949 married the poet Mikko Kustaa Kilpi, whose name she adopted. She attended Helsinki University and graduated with a degree in education in 1953.

In 1956, Eeva Kilpi began working as an English teacher, but gave up her position a year later to devote herself to the three sons of the marriage as a housewife and mother. Dissatisfied with her marriage, she began writing in the late 1950s and in 1962 published Nainen kuvastimessa (German: "Women in the Mirror"), a novel about this period of life. Her work is shaped by strong female figures, as is the case in her first novel Kukkivan maan rannat (1960), which is about the sexual awakening of a young woman in Karelia. "Your women are ... alive - at the same time aware of the painful nature of their existence, independent, respectful of creativity and emotion, near and far, open and thoughtful, just as the author seems to be," says literary critic Kathleen Osgood Dana, who on the other hand, Kilpis describes the male figures, with a few exceptions, as "smoothly drawn" throughout. In 1985 Dana divided the author's oeuvre into four chronological phases: childhood, youth, founding and breaking up the family; The ordeal and preliminary successes of a self- reliant woman (ends with the novel Häätanhu , 1973); Poems and (from 1979 with the collection of short stories Se mitä ei koskaan sanota ) a detailed investigation into the intangible connections that link family pasts and our selves.

Establishment as an author

In 1966, Kilpi divorced her husband. Her popularity increased with further publications, including a novel ( Elämä edestakaisin , 1964) and short story volumes . In 1968 she was awarded the national book prize of Finland ( Valtion kirjallisuuspalkinto ) for the first time for the short story collection Rakkauden ja kuoleman pöytä (1967) , which she won two more times. She was able to establish herself as an independent voice in Finnish literature in 1970 with the collection of short stories Kesä ja keski-ikäinen nainen , about a middle -aged single woman trying to find her way in a family-oriented society.

In 1972 Tamara was published , who is counted among the most influential novels in Kilpi's work, which also includes several volumes of poetry. In Tamara , the Finnish author describes the intellectual friendship between a sexually active woman who has had numerous affairs and her paraplegic, impotent university professor. The novel was translated into ten languages, including German in 1974. Dana calls it one of Kilpi's most explicitly erotic, creative and moral works. It contains one of the few fully realized male figures in the author's oeuvre.

The publication of the autobiographical novel trilogy Muistojen aika ("Time of Memories"), consisting of the parts Talvisodan aika (1989), Välirauha, ikävöinnin aika (1990) , brought Kilpi popularity and praise from critics from the end of the 1980s in Finland. and Jatkosodan aika (1993). In the works that cover the years 1939 to 1945, Kilpi remembers the winter and continuation war that she experienced as a teenager in Karelia, reports on her school days and the evacuations and resettlements. Dana drew parallels with elements from Kilpi's fictional work ( Elama edestakaisin , 1979; Elaman evakkona , 1983).

In the 1980s, the author increasingly approached the protection of nature, animals and plants as topics in her collections of short stories and poems. In the 1996 volume of poetry Kiitos eilisesta (English: "Thank you for yesterday") Kilpi dealt with the death of her frail, dominant mother. Dana drew comparisons to the American author May Sarton (1912–1995). Like Sarton, Kilpi would have traced female suffering and human grief in her writing so that these "small troubles and great torments become tangible". "Her poems are outbursts of anger, bitterness and envy, great loneliness and longing for company of all kinds, but they are also companions, sources of comfort and dear friends," says Dana.

Kilpi now lives in Espoo . She is a member of the Association of Finnish Writers, which she headed from 1971 to 1973. From 1970 to 1975 she was President of the Finnish PEN. In 1974 Kilpi was awarded the Pro Finlandia ( Order of the Lion of Finland ) medal.

Works

Eeva Kilpi at the Helsinki Book Fair (2008)

Short story collections

• 1959: Noidanlukko (German wind in maple blossoms , 1963)
• 1966: Lapikkaita
• 1967: Rakkauden ja kuoleman pöytä
• 1970: Kesä ja keski-ikäinen nainen
• 1971: Hyvän yön Tarinoita
• 1979: Se mitä ei koskaan sanota
• 1986: Kuolema ja nuori rakastaja
• 1987: Kootut novellit vuosilta 1959–1986

Novels

• 1960: Kukkivan maan rannat
• 1962: Nainen kuvastimessa
• 1964: Elämä edestakaisin
• 1972: Tamara (German Tamara , 1974)
• 1973: Häätanhu
• 1978: Naisen päiväkirja
• 1983: Elämän evakkona
• 1989: Talvisodan aika
• 1990: Välirauha, ikävöinnin aika
• 1993: Jatkosodan aika
• 1998: Muistojen aika. Yhteisnide kolmesta edellisestä kirjasta
• 2001: Rajattomuuden aika
• 2007: Unta vain

Volumes of poetry

• 1972: Laulu rakkaudesta ja muita runoja
• 1976: Terveisin
• 1978: Runoja 1972–1976
• 1982: Ennen kuolemaa
• 1987: Animalia
• 1991: Laulu rakkaudesta, Eeva Kilven runot, Ellen Thesleffin kuvat
• 1996: Kiitos eilisestä
• 2000: Perhonen ylittää tien. Kootut runot 1972-2000
• 2012: Kuolinsiivous

Essays

• 1976: Ihmisen ääni

Awards

• 1968: National book award for the short story collection Rakkauden ja kuoleman pöytä
• 1974: National Book Prize for the novel Häätanhu
• 1974: Pro Finlandia Medal ( Order of the Lion of Finland )
• 1977: Espoo Medal
• 1984: National Book Prize for the novel Elämän evakkona
• 1990: Runeberg Prize for the novel Talvisodan aika
• 1999: Alfred Kordelin Prize
• 2001: Karelia Prize
• 2002: Thank you-for-the-book medal for the novel Rajattomuuden aika
• 2007: Nils Ferlin Prize
• 2017: Aleksis Kivi Prize for her life's work

Web links

Commons : Eeva Kilpi  - Collection of Images

• Portrait on the website of Yleisradio (Finnish)
• Profile at the publisher WSOY (Finnish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} cf. Eeva Karin Kilpi . In: Contemporary Authors Online , Thomson Gale, 2008.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} cf. Dana, Kathleen Osgood: Eeva Kilpi: Writer, Woman, Karelian, Finn . In: World Literature Today 59 (1985) Summer, No. 3, pp. 354-357.
3. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Profile  ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at wsoy.fi (Finnish; accessed October 10, 2009).  
4. ↑ cf. Dana, Kathleen Osgood: Jatkosodan aika . In: World Literature Today. 69.1 (Winter 1995), p. 189.
5. ↑ cf. Dana, Kathleen Osgood: Kiitos eilisesta . In: World Literature Today. 71.4 (Autumn 1997), p. 834.