Last Orders
By
Anna-Leena Härkönen
When life is scarier than death; Dark humour, spot-on dialogue and twisted incidents.
At her own birthday party, Anita asks her friends, who would be willing to help her take her life? After she has spoken the words aloud, she realises she has touched a taboo.
At fifty, she is tired of her profession. A need to start a new novel gets her anxious: she knows that inevitably a deep depression will follow. Is it really a need to write, a need to live?
”A writer’s job is slow, messy and pathetic. As if a surgeon cut the patient up and left everything out in the open to rot, not removing the evil, nor sewing the wound.”
About the author
Anna-Leena Härkönen (b. 1965) has been among the most prominent figures in Finnish cultural life for more than thirty years, both as an author and scriptwriter, and as a successful stage and screen actress.Härkönen published her debut, The Poleax (Häräntappoase, 1984), at the age of 18 and achieved enormous critical and popular success with this bold and true-to-life novel. The Poleax has been on the market ever since and is still an essential part of the literary education of the young Finnish readers today. Härkönen uses a language bursting with life, and she has an uncompromising sense of the comical. She is not afraid to touch tabus and difficult subjects in her writing.Härkönen has written around 20 works so far, and her work has been translated into more than 10 languages. Her novels have been made into several films and stage productions, among them the six-part television series The Poleax which has been broadcast several times. Claes Olsson has also directed a full-length feature film based on her novel Aquarium Love.
Author page
