Over the course of my career as an author, I have published two short story collections, Valon kääntöpiiri (2012) and Hyönteisten epilogi (2016). Both titles have been published by the publishing house Kirjalabyrintti.
My works describe the tensions controlling our existence in the world. The books explore different manifestations of our culture, while telling stories about the dialogue between the known and unknown. Valon kääntöpiiri lingers by the borderlines between sleep and wakefulness, while Hyönteisten epilogi visits the bottomless pit between humanity and animality. My stories are independent incidents concerning the clash of these forces.
I contribute to one of the great stories of modern times: the story of encountering the Other and the ethics related to it. At the same time as my imaginative scenes switch off our realistic conceptions of the state of our culture, my language returns to this theme over and over again. On the textual level I constantly analyse the cultural history of the theme, the way the known explanations of the world, fairy tales, songs and myths stimulate our imagination, and our ability to imagine the Other inside of us, in our mind and body or outside of us, in our society and culture. The neurochemistry of my stories and its compounds may open up to lingering readers on multiple levels.
I do not content myself with ready-made answers and interpretations of the world. Instead, I want my texts to give us an opportunity to accept mystery, as there is always something that is left unexplained, uncommented, uninterpreted. With my collections of texts and stories I try to achieve a reading state of mind where mystery is at the same time a literary technique, the code and the direct subject matter of the narrative. I believe that our narrative heritage has always been based on the same starting point: the roots and cultivation of mystery.
Both of my books welcome the unknown in the familiar. I am fascinated by constructions where the forces controlling our humanity, whether conscious or unconscious, do not emerge by themselves but are interested and constantly circling each other. I push the veil of civilisation aside just enough to give the fascinating choreography of the unknown the chance to invite us to its dance.
I feel that literary art has a unique way of exploring the structures and expressions of our culture. It is also able to question these phenomena about their nature, and ask what makes them important and worth of telling, and as textualities, how they are so important to us.