The Eternal Road (Ikitie)
By
Antti Tuuri
Caught up in the expulsion of the right-wing, anti-Communist Lapua Movement, Jussi Ketola is sent along the Eternal Road to the Karelian Republic.
Jussi Ketola has brought Matti Kurikka’s brand of socialism with him from America. One night in the summer of 1930, the men of the Lapua Movement abduct him from his home and beat him up.
The journey continues along the Lapua Movement’s thugs’ staging route, the Eternal Road, towards Russia. Ketola goes wandering in Karelia on the Russian side of the border, is recaptured at a Russian checkpoint and is finally taken to Petrozavodsk.
In the autonomous Soviet republic of Karelia, Ketola encounters some acquaintances from years before in New York and works for several years on the New Dawn collective farm, established by other migrants. When the Soviet purges of Karelia begin, his acquaintances are taken away in the middle of the night to end up in prison camps or shot. The Lapua Movement has been suppressed. Ketola decides to return to his homeland for good.
About the author
Antti Tuuri (b. 1944) graduated in graphic engineering in 1972. He then worked as a technical director, a managing director and a development director for several printing companies. Since 1983 he has devoted himself to writing.The author is very often a portrayer of the middle-class, a behaviourist characterized by a precise style coloured by Ostrobothnian humour. Tuuri uses language precisely, without wasting words, and with great clarity of narrative. He pays a lot of attention to Man as a link in the natural chain, living at nature’s mercy. Tuuri is always seeking new paths and tends to think in ecological terms.Ostrobothnia (Pohjanmaa), the impressive first volume of a series which Tuuri began in the 1980s, won the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1985. The book describes a province in which people have always had a flare for rising up, marching and even dying for a cause. An epic film based on the novel was filmed in 1988. Ostrobothnia was followed by five other novels, the last of which, The Call of the Plains (Lakeuden kutsu) concluded the series in a remarkable way. For this novel, Antti Tuuri received the prestigious Finlandia Prize in 1997.Tuuri started to write the series My Mother’s Family (Äitini suku) in 2001 with the novel The Sons of Eerik (Eerikinpojat). The series so far consists of nine published novels, including Skywalkers (Taivaanraapijat, 2005) and The Eternal Road (Ikitie, 2011). The author now has around 60 books to his credit: fiction, documentaries, travel stories, biographies, and corporate histories. He is also an eminent writer of radio, TV, and stage plays as well as opera librettos. Many of his books have been adapted for radio, television and film.Tuuri’s interests range widely from travelling and fly-fishing to sailing and tennis.
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