- August Prize 2000 · Winner
Popular Music from Vittula
Populärmusik från Vittula
Mikael Niemi (born 1959)
Translated by Laurie Thompson
English editions
In EnglishPopular Music
Harper Perennial · United Kingdom · 2004 · Paperback · 368 pages
Popular Music from Vittula
Seven Stories Press · United States · September 2003 · Hardcover · 237 pages
Popular Music
Flamingo · United Kingdom · 2003 · 368 pages
Popular Music from Vittula
Seven Stories Press · United States · 15 October 2004 · Paperback · 237 pages
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In the 1960s and 70s, Matti and his silent friend Niila are boys in Vittula, a crowded quarter at the edge of Pajala in the Torne Valley, near the Finnish border. Asphalt arrives, small farms go under, and rock and roll reaches the north. Their elders push back against everything new, still marked by the poverty of the 1930s and the strict Laestadian faith. The boys long for a world past the edge of the valley. With rough humour the novel upends clichés about the men and women of the Swedish far north, and asks what it means to be denied your own tongue and how people manage to get by.
AI-generated summary
About the book
- Form
- Novel
- Length
- 237 pages in the original
- Genres
- Coming of age (assigned by AI)
- Set in
- Sweden, 1960s–1970s
- First published
- 2000 by Norstedts
- Author's age
- 41 when first published
- ISBN
9789113007731 (original)
9781583225233 (Seven Stories Press, United States)
9780007145508 (Flamingo, United Kingdom)
9781583226599 (Seven Stories Press, United States)
9780007145515 (Harper Perennial, United Kingdom)
- More
- Wikidata