The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna

The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna, translated by Herbert Lomas / ISBN 9781805330356 / 189-page paperback from Pushkin Press

***

A delightfully witty and mordant modern classic from Finland: the story of a journalist who befriends an injured hare and embarks into the Finnish wilderness

Kaarlo Vatanen is fed up with his life. He’s sick of his job, his wife, his urban lifestyle in Helsinki. But all this changes one warm summer’s evening, when he encounters an injured hare on a deserted country road.

On an impulse he can’t fully explain, Vatanen abruptly abandons his car, his home, his wife and his job to chase the hare into the forest. A year of comic misadventures ensues, where Vatanen and his unlikely companion battle through forest fires, pagan sacrifices, military war games and encounters with murderous bears, kept afloat by the help and understanding of other sympathetic free spirits.

A much-loved classic in Finland, The Year of the Hare is a freewheeling adventure through the Finnish countryside, and a witty portrayal of one man’s long detour from conventional living.

Aarto Paasilinna was born in Kittila, Finland in 1942. After a successful but unsatisfying career as a journalist, he quit his job and sold his boat to write The Year of the Hare, which became an international bestseller. One of Finland’s most well-known writers, his works have been translated into 27 languages and have sold over seven million copies worldwide.