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Anja Kauranen. Ihon aika. Helsinki. WSOY. 1993. 153 pages. FIM 127.
Finnish readers know Anja Kauranen as a deft writer of several novels. Her latest work, Ihon aika (Time of the Flesh), earned her a nomination for the 1993 Finlandia Prize and was on the Finnish best-seller lists last fall. Much as in her 1991 novel Kaipauksen ja energian lapset (see WLT 67:1, p. 214), the main characters of Ihon aika are a mother and her children. The novel is divided into eighty-four short chapters that wander back and forth in time, and ultimately into dream and fantasy. It is initially a story of a family of four--father, mother, and two daughters--united by "disappointment, horror, nostalgic melancholy, terrible secrets, shame." The family has its...