Sport Stories

When you look at life through the lens of sports, you see the child’s first steps as a sporting performance and Turku’s Football Club as the interpreter of the grandmother’s feelings.

In this refreshingly light mini-novel, the passionate bench athlete and amateur volleyball player, Petri Tamminen, describes both the will to win and the forgetfulness of winning and, above all, how only as part of a team, one can achieve the happiness of selflessness.

Sport Stories – An Athlete’s Biography is a fresco-like collection of sport-related incidents and situations in Tamminen’s own life. The 70 fragmented snapshots carry the reader chronologically through the author’s life, from his school days to the army and student times to his work and family life – and sports are always a part of it – be it football, hockey, volleyball or ping-pong. 

Sports are said to evoke great emotions in Finns. With wistful humour, Tamminen completes the picture by highlighting the small emotions that are always associated with sports, but which do not always surface in the context of everyday life. 

 

When you look at life through the lens of sports, you see the child’s first steps as a sporting performance and Turku’s Football Club as the interpreter of the grandmother’s feelings.

In this refreshingly light mini-novel, the passionate bench athlete and amateur volleyball player, Petri Tamminen, describes both the will to win and the forgetfulness of winning and, above all, how only as part of a team, one can achieve the happiness of selflessness.

Sport Stories – An Athlete’s Biography is a fresco-like collection of sport-related incidents and situations in Tamminen’s own life. The 70 fragmented snapshots carry the reader chronologically through the author’s life, from his school days to the army and student times to his work and family life – and sports are always a part of it – be it football, hockey, volleyball or ping-pong. 

Sports are said to evoke great emotions in Finns. With wistful humour, Tamminen completes the picture by highlighting the small emotions that are always associated with sports, but which do not always surface in the context of everyday life. 

 

info

  • Year of publication

    2023

  • Original title

    Urheilijaelämäkerta

  • Page count

    95

  • Original publisher

    Otava

  • Original language of publication

    Finnish

Reviews

  • Arttu Seppänen, Helsingin Sanomat

    "The main themes of the book are rigid masculinity and male bonding. Sports talk is ultimately about expressing one’s feelings. (…) Biographies are often thick bricks. The narrator of Tamminen's book chooses to tell a little and about small everyday events."

Interested in literary or film rights?

Get in touch with your ideas and our literary agents will get back to you in a heartbeat.

Authors