Girl Upon Heaven's Pier

Originally published in 1951, this novel tells of a young girl living with her deeply religious grandparents in pre-war Vyborg¿before it became part of the Soviet Union. Leena hates school, loves music and rain, and wanders through the town in a state of childish enchantment. ¿Like a spruce cone, a child falls into a world where logical disorder replaces magical order, and there you are-in trouble, we¿ll agree.¿ The world she inhabits features multiple layers of reality, and this is reflected in the novel¿s artful narrative: life and death are reflections of each other, and reality is merely a map of the individual¿s inner world. Through the naive perspective of a young girl, the book addresses deep philosophical concerns in simple, lucid prose.