Tove Jansson - the mother of all Moomins

1914-2001

Bild: Tove Jansson, 1982. Pekka Elomaa, YLE.

Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is one of the most beloved and best known Finnish authors. Her Moomin books have been translated into 34 languages.

Tove Jansson was born in 1914 in Helsinki, Finland. Her both parents being artists she, too, started out with a career as an illustrator.

Idea starting with the main character Moomintroll the Moomins began to shape up in Jansson´s head in 1930´s. The first book, "The Moomins and the Great Flood", was published in 1945.

Jansson had both illustrated and written the book by herself. Yet only the third book became an actual success in Finland and Sweden. Such was the reception that the book "Finn Family Moomintroll" was also translated into English.

Moomin books have now been translated into 34 languages. Of Finnish literacy only the Kalevala and books by Mika Waltari have been translated into more languages.

Being the most famous part of Tove Jansson´s work Moomins have been turned into many tv-series, movies and plays. The best known of those is the Dutch-Japanese-Finnish colaboration anime series of which we have a few sample clips.

Although Moomin books are what she is best known of, Tove Jansson had also other projects. She, for example, illustrated the first version translation if Finnish of JRR Tolkien´s The Hobbit (1973) and a Finnish translation of Lewis Carrol´s Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland (1986).

Tove Jansson´s work with children´s literature has been recognized with awards like Hans Christian Andersen Award. In 2001 she died of cancer in lungs and breasts.

Text: Tsuua Kekäle

NYCKELORD: Tove Jansson

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Faktaruta

The Moomin characters:
Moomintroll: A young moomin boy, son of Moominmamma and Moominpappa, does not wear any clothes
Moominmamma: Married with Moominpappa, mother to Moomintroll, almost always has her black handbag with her and wears a red-white striped apron
Moominpappa: Married with Moominmamma, father to Moomintroll, has a black top hat on always unless when sleeping
Sniff: A friend of Moomintroll, he is very immature, often selfish and greedy, but not mean-spirited, he gets easily frightened and is very interested in money and would love to find an easy and fast way to become rich
Snufkin: Moomintroll´s best friend, a vagabond, who goes south for winters, but returns to Moominvalley every spring, often figured as the wise one of Moomintroll´s friends.
Little My: A small and determined mymble girl, friends with the rest of the gang (Moomintroll, Sniff, Snufkin and the Snork Maiden), although because of her aggressiveness she often gets on othes´ nerves and can act very disrespectfully, she wears a red dress
The Snork Maiden: a young lady snork, who wears a gold anklet and likes to wear a flower behind her ear
Hemulen: Started out as an avid stamp-collector, but when his collection had a copy of every stamp in a world, he changed the field of interest to botany