Where Worlds Begin
By
Joel Haahtela
An enchanting novel of a young artist which asks how one could be faithful to oneself and love.
Visa is 16 years old and lives with his mother. He has an evening job as a cinema usher. One winter evening, a film he sees about Vincent van Gogh awakens a frenzied urge to paint.
His mind is filled with an intoxicating notion: he will become an artist. With a brush in his hand, Visa sees the world as if for the first time. Visa meets the melancholic Tapio at drawing classes. The boys dream of Chagall’s worlds and Continental cities. Tapio’s sister Helmi, a sweet and wise girl, is everything Tapio is not: confident and full of joie de vivre.
This brilliant literary novel delves into the mysteries of artistic creation and asks whether happiness always has a downside, always a negative to a positive.
About the author
Joel Haahtela (b. 1972) is an author and psychiatrist. He was inspired to specialise in psychiatry after reading Oliver Sacks’ book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.The author has been recognized with two Finlandia Prize nominations and has also been nominated for the Runeberg Prize for literature two times. People’s stories are important to him in both of his professions, and the self is a key theme in his writing. Haahtela aspires to understand the human condition and the meaning of people’s own decisions in their lives. His parallel careers complement each other very well and Haahtela believes he will never stop writing. When he was still a student, Joel Haahtela published a collection of short stories titled Unicum Zwack together with friends. These short stories gave him the impetus to write a novel during his studies. His debut novel, Twice Disappeared, was published in the spring of 1999.In 2023, Joel Haahtela was awarded the Veijo Meri prize, a recognition by the Otava Literary Foundation for significant efforts in Finnish literature.
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