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Sat 10 Oct 2009An unsettling story from a Scandinavian original
FICTION: EILEEN BATTERSBYreviews The True DeceiverBy Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal, Sort Of Books, 201pp, £7.99
IT IS EASY to retreat into a closed world when the ordinary events of daily life appear threatening, or merely dull. Slowly but surely, a wider circle of English-language readers is becoming aware of the adult fiction of the children’s writer Tove Jansson, who drew on her mixed Finnish-Swedish heritage. Best known as the creator of the Moomins, a Scandinavian community known for commonsense and biggish noses, Jansson had a thesis – survival is what counts – and the inhabitants of the Moominvalley and the Lonely Mountains adhered to that. Whatever the test, they endure.
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