Published in 1994, ‘Tuomari Müller, hieno mies’ (Judge Müller, a fine man) is a novel by Finnish writer Eeva Joenpello that won the ‘Finlandia Prize‘ in 1994. Eeva Elisabeth Joenpelto (17 June 1921, Sammatti, Finland – 28 January 2004, Lohja, Finland), married name after 1945 Hellemann, was an award-winning Finnish novelist and one of the most significant Finnish writers of the 20th century: an artist professor and an honorary doctorate, her extensive production is a key part of Finnish prose art, and her writing is especially remembered for the ‘Lohja tetralogy’ which depicted strong women. Described as a “productive novelist of monomaniacal intensity”, she occasionally wrote under the pseudonyms of Eeva Helle and Eeva Autere. Joenpelto was President of ‘PEN Finland’ in 1964-67 and worked as an art professor from 1980–85. She was married (until 1975) to Jarl Hellemann, the CEO of Tammi. ‘Tuomari Müller, hieno mies’ is a relentlessly perceptive description of the world’s irrational greed and the family, where the sins of the fathers are avenged on both sons and daughters. Judge Gösta Müller is known to be a gentleman, strange and distant as a person, but powerful: after graduating as a lawyer, he is appointed director of the most important bank in his hometown, but when he doesn’t agree to participate in municipal political games, he behaves like a child. The story begins on the day when Meeri Müller, a widow living in Kruununhaa, Helsinki, receives visitors: it is about the small area of land she owns there, a land that has not been of interest to anyone before, but now those few hectares of stunted moorland have risen to an unfathomable value. Meeri Müller won’t sell, but the plot is important, its rational use means considerable progress for the whole city: the battle of the spirits begins: a megalomaniac vs a cunning, prosperous, feisty old woman. No one is innocent in their struggle, even if it seems so: the victims are elsewhere.
