Marsh Memories

A book about important themes of our time, about humans as a part of nature and about how the climate change impacts our lives, and what we can do about it.

The old school of a small municipality in North Finland has long been abandoned. The strangemoore behind the school was already part of the landscape long before humans had drawn the borders of the village. The trenches could not turn the swamp into a forest, yet it has changed. Juho has inherited the old school and bought a workhorse, and starts there an eco-community to restore the marshland.

Hellä has worked as a photograph all over the world and has come back to the same town to clean up the house of her late grandfather. The village is even more deserted than before, but the impact of human activities has grown. The forest of her memories has disappeared.

Their stories intertwine and show in a concrete way how human activities affect the environment – not always as planned. Juho and Hellä are looking for their own place in a changed nature. It pushes them toward one another – and away from one another.

What can a single individual do to impact a global phenomenon? How strong can the desire of doing well be? And is it possible to return to the past?

Jenni Räinä is a journalist interested in nature and environment. Both of her non-fiction books deal with the Finnish nature, especially forests and swamps (Women Wandering the Wild, Like, 2021, and the Finlandia Non-Fiction Prize Winner The Forest After Us together with Pekka Juntti, Anssi Jokiranta and Anna Ruohonen, Like 2019). Her debut fiction novel Marsh Memories reflects the author’s knowledge of these topics.