kirja | Huipulle ja ytimeen

Good news! The book I wrote, “Under glass: a life with Asperger syndrome” has been published in China. I received a few copies of the Chinese version in the mail, and the cover features an illustration of my son. My name is also printed on the cover and spine, and I can recognize it because it’s written in our Latin alphabet.

It’s quite exciting to hold a book in my hands when I can’t understand what it says. The characters are completely foreign to me. However, I have some familiarity with the Chinese language. Once, when I was a guest at the Chinese Embassy in Helsinki, I drew a few characters I knew on a napkin. To my surprise, our hosts immediately recognized what I had written. I’ve also noticed that Chinese works well in text messages. When you start writing a character, you immediately get several suggestions to choose from.

Traditionally, Chinese characters are written in a specific order, following a precise sequence of strokes. In a Chinese dictionary, words can be arranged by the number and order of strokes, but in more modern dictionaries, they’re often organized by pronunciation. Chinese can also be written using our alphabet based on pronunciation, which brings the writing system closer to ours.
Once, on a plane, I asked a Japanese person about the book he was reading, and I was surprised to learn that they read it just like we read our own books: horizontally, from left to right. However, my book in China is written in traditional Chinese characters. It’s a translation of the English version of my book.

I once visited Guangzhou on vacation, and there was a large library in the city. However, the European literature section was very small, and the shelves were almost empty, so I left some of my English books there. My book was translated at Guangzhou University, and I heard about it later. Once the translation was complete, it was easier to find a publisher. The book’s translator also visited the linguistics department at the University of Helsinki to study the unique aspects of Finnish society.

The book was published in Beijing by a publisher specializing in psychology. Along the way, I had several contacts involved in the different stages of the process. Now that I have the physical copies in my hands, I know that it’s available for sale. I hope it does well! I can’t see or know exactly where it’s being sold from here, but according to the contract, it is available in mainland China.

I hope to see you at the Tampere Book Festival on November 30th – December 1st, 2024!

My beloved books

I was recently asked if being an author has lived up to my expectations and dreams. That’s the question, why I started writing books in the first place. I wanted to talk about my son’s Asperger’s syndrome, so that I could help other parents in a similar situation, and at the same time I wanted to make the syndrome known and gain understanding for parents of children. I wanted a better working life and an understanding of people. I wrote stories where things happened in an emphasized strange way. I thought multi-layered fiction would make people think.

I wrote the Matkalle book during work and vacation trips. There was plenty of time to write during flights and airports. This is how the stories take place in different countries and unexpected or other changes will occur in human relationships. In short stories, I tried to picture of different people. which have their own way of working. My idea was to make people understand other people.

When I was at the book fair, a poetry teacher was selling books next to me. I recalled how in the writing class, the teacher said, I have a poem there and there. I made them by accident. I recalled how at the poetry evening I was asked again and again to read my poems. I remembered how my friend said she still remembers the poem I read. I decided to make my first book of poems: Poems about working life and other life.

I have received a lot of feedback from my readers. Some people have read the book “Under Glass: A life with Asperger Syndrome” many times. Mothers identify with the book and its son. I got publicity on television and in periodicals. When I was on a course at the University of Manchester, I gave the teachers the Asperger book as a gift. The professors read it in the corridors and some were afraid they would be left without the book. The book suddenly became very valuable and they almost fought over the books. The Chinese version of the book has received a lot of positive feedback from the Chinese.

I was asked to write blogs about leadership in magazines and promote my book Stories of Leaders. Many have asked if I write about true life. But they are fiction. However, in real life I have experienced the same things as I have written in my book. It feels strange. Many say that they have met some bosses of the book. Some people start telling their own work experiences or their husband’s experiences about how bad management has been at work. The professor of management was overjoyed about the short stories and said that the research will examine stories similar to the ones in the book.

The cover of Matkalla book shows sailing on a pink heart boat. On the road, we are in the book all the time, but more happens in the short stories because of the differences between people. It was challenging to write the stories in order to get an authentic atmosphere from each target country. The book has led to discussions with some readers about travel. Weddings and honeymoons are demanding interpersonal decisions, and you don’t always get even that far and there will be sadness and suppression of emotions. Sometimes it’s hard to choose and easier to get stuck in the familiar or forcefully move forward; sometimes with the greatest sacrifices. Sometimes human relationships bring security, but in stories, often on the contrary, they bring danger. Sometimes one lives a Double Life or otherwise deceives the other. The past is remembered or even the present is hated. It is better not to tell more about the stories without revealing the plot.

My poetic vein got up to speed in my book “Poems from working life and other life”. There has been positive feedback about this book and I have heard people read my poems aloud. How does that feel about self-disclosure. In poems, you can’t hide behind a lot of words.

f I could go back to the moment when I first dreamed of publishing my own book, how would I advise myself? I do not know. I like these books and I have a unique way of writing that cannot be copied.

What I dreamed of from the beginning. The books haven’t sold as much as I thought. The feedback has been as I thought. They ask, am I making or planning a new book? Yes, the next book will probably be a collection of short stories and I feel like writing many more books after that.

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My Book Has Been Published in China.

My beloved books