Tove Jansson

Tove Jansson (1914-2001) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish novelist, painter, honorary Professor of Philosophy, illustrator, and comic strip author. She wrote and illustrated her first book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, in 1945. She said later that the war had depressed her, and she had wanted to write something naïve and innocent. This first book was hardly noticed, but the next Moomin books, Comet in Moominland (1946) and Finn Family Moomintroll (1948), made her famous. She went on to write six more Moomin books, a number of picture books and comic strips. Her fame spread quickly and she became Finland's most widely read author abroad. Jansson continued painting and writing for the rest of her life, although her contributions to the Moomin series became rare after 1970. Her first foray outside children's literature was in 1968. Since then, she authored five more novels and five collections of short stories. She had a studio in Helsinki but spent much of her life on the small island Klovharu, near Porvoo. Tove Jansson lived with her partner, the graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä.