Published in 2003, ‘Punainen erokirja’ (‘Red book of separation’) is a novel by Finnish writer Pirkko Saisio that won the ‘Finlandia Prize‘ in 2003. Pirkko Helena Saisio (16 April 1949) is a Finnish author, actress and director who has also written under the pen names Jukka Larsson and Eva Wein. Saisio has a broad literary output, dealing with many kinds of texts from film screenplays all the way to librettos for the ballet. In 2013, her novel ‘Betoniyö’ (1981) was adapted into the feature film ‘Concrete Night’ by Pirjo Honkasalo. Saisio received her degree in acting from ‘Suomen teatterikoulu’ (now ‘Theatre Academy’) in 1975 and Saisio’s daughter, whose father is the late Harri Hyttinen, is actress Elsa Saisio. In ‘Punainen erokirja’, the last part of the autobiographical trilogy, Saisio describes the discovery of sexual identity and the calling of a writer and the political student movement of the early 1970s. The novel describes a time when lesbianism is still something to hide, and being caught can be held accountable even in front of the teachers of the ‘Theater Academy’. Sexual minorities gather in a secret meeting place, on Helsinki‘s ‘Kalevankatu’. Saisio’s style is fragmentary and lyrical, seemingly light, but it sinks deep into the reader like a stone in water. As the title suggests, the ‘Red book of separation’ is also a book about painful separations. Saisio writes not only touchingly, but also humorously, the self-narrator speaking in the present looking at her young self with warm irony.
