Profile of Tove Jansson on Famous Like Me

Tove Marika Jansson (August 9, 1914 – June 27, 2001) was a Finnish novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. She is the author of, among other works, the world-famous Moomin books.

Life and Family

Tove Jansson was born and died in Helsinki, Finland, and was the daughter of the sculptor Viktor Jansson and the illustrator Signe Hammarsten-Jansson. Her brothers were also artists in different fields: Per Olof Jansson was a photographer, Lars Jansson an author and comic strip artist. A Finnish citizen whose mother tongue was Swedish, she was part of the Finland-Swedish minority. Because of this, all of her books were originally written in Swedish.

The sea was Tove Jansson's greatest inspiration. When she was a child, her family lived in summer in the islands of the Gulf of Finland. Later in life, she had her atelier in Helsinki, but lived much of her life on a small island called Klovharu near the town of Porvoo. Tove Jansson lived with her partner, the graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä.

Painter and Illustrator

In addition to her own Moomin books Jansson illustrated other classics like J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

The figure of Moomin appears first in Tove Jansson's political cartoons, where it is used as a signature character near the artist's name. This "Proto-Moomin" is thin and ugly with a long, narrow nose and devilish tail. Jansson has said that she had designed the Moomins in her youth: when she lost a philosophical quarrel about Immanuel Kant with her brother, she drew "the ugliest creature imaginable" on the wall of their WC and wrote under it "Kant". This Moomin later gained weight and got a more pleasant appearance, but in the first Moomin book Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen this Immanuel-Kant-Moomin is still perceptible. The name of the creature comes from Tove Jansson's uncle: when Tove studied in Stockholm and lived with her Swedish relations, her uncle tried to stop her pilfering food by telling her that a "Moomintroll" lived in the kitchen closet and breathed cold breath down people's necks.

Author

Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated her first Moomin book, Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (1945, "The little trolls and the great flood"), during World War II. She said later that the war had depressed her and that she had wanted to write something naïve and innocent. The publisher refused to use the name "Moomin" in the title of the book, afraid that it would confuse the public, and used the term "Little Trolls" instead. The first book was hardly noticed, but the next Moomin books Comet in Moominland (1946) and Finn Family Moomintroll (1948, the literal translation of the original name would be "Magician's hat") made her famous.

The style of the Moomin books changed as time went by. The first books, up to Moominland in Midwinter (1957), were classical adventure books with strange and adventurous plots including floods, comets and supernatural things, and the characters did not undergo any psychological development. "Moominland in Midwinter" is the turning point in the series: the books take more realistic settings ("realistic" in the context of the Moomin universe) and the characters start to get psychological depth. "Moominland in Midwinter" focuses on Moomintroll, who wakes up in the middle of the winter (Moomins sleep from October to March), and has to cope with the strange and unfriendly world he finds then.

Comic Strip Artist

In 1952, after Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll had been translated into English, an English publisher asked if Tove Jansson would be interested in drawing comic strips about the Moomins. Jansson had already drawn a long Moomin comic adventure, called Mumintrollet och jordens undergång ("Moomintrolls and the end of the world") based loosely on Comet in Moominland, for the Finland-Swedish newspaper Ny Tid, and she accepted the offer. The comic strip Moomintroll started in 1954 in The Evening News, a local newspaper for the London area and the London commuter. Tove Jansson drew 21 long Moomin stories from 1954 to 1959, writing them at first by herself and then with her brother Lars Jansson. 1959 Tove gave this up, because the daily work of comic artist did not leave her time to write books and paint, but Lars took over the strip and continued it until 1975.

In 1966 she won the Hans Christian Andersen Award for her contributions to children's literature.

Jansson's Moomin books, originally written in Swedish, have been translated into 33 languages. After the Kalevala and books by Mika Waltari, they are the most translated works of Finnish literature.

Bibliography

The Moomin Books:

• SmÃ¥trollen och den stora översvämningen (1945)
• Kometjakten (1946, Comet in Moominland)
• Trollkarnens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll)
• Muminpappas bravder (1950, The Exploits of Moominpappa)
• Hur gick det sen? (1952, The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My)
• Farlig midsommar (1954, Moominsummer Madness)
• Trollvinter (1957, Moominland in Midwinter)
• Vem ska trösta Knyttet? (1960, Who Will Comfort Toffle?)
• Det osynliga barnet och andra berättelser (1962, Tales From Moominvalley)
• Pappan och havet (1965, Moominpappa at Sea)
• Sent i November (1970, Moominvalley in November)
• Den farliga resan (1977, The Dangerous Journey)
• Skurken i Muminhuset (1980)

Other Books:

• Lyssnerskan (1971)
• Sommarboken (1971, The Summer Book)
• Solstaden (1974, Sun City)
• DockskÃ¥pet och andra berättelser (1978)
• Den ärliga bedragaren (1982)
• Resa med lätt bagage (1987)
• Rent spel (1989)
• Brev frÃ¥n Klara och andra berättelser (1991)

Memoirs:

• Bildhuggares dotter (1968, Sculptor's Daughter)

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Tove Jansson