The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories [Paperback]

An NYRB Classics Original
 
Tove Jansson was a master of brevity, unfolding worlds at a touch. Her art flourished in small settings, as can be seen in her bestselling novelThe Summer Bookand in her internationally celebrated cartoon strips and books about the Moomins. It is only natural, then, that throughout her life she turned again and again to the short story.The Woman Who Borrowed Memoriesis the first extensive selection of Jansson’s stories to appear in English.

Many of the stories collected here are pure Jansson, touching on island solitude and the dangerous pull of the artistic impulse: in “The Squirrel” the equanimity of the only inhabitant of a remote island is thrown by a visitor, in “The Summer Child” an unlovable boy is marooned along with his lively host family, in “The Cartoonist” an artist takes over a comic strip that has run for decades, and in “The Doll’s House” a man’s hobby threatens to overwhelm his life. Others explore unexpected territory: “Shopping” has a post-apocalyptic setting, “The Locomotive” centers on a railway-obsessed loner with murderous fantasies, and “The Woman Who Borrowed Memories” presents a case of disturbing transference. Unsentimental, yet always humane, Jansson’s stories complement and enlarge our understanding of a singular figure in world literature.

[Jansson] writes about these things with sparkling wit and a quirky sensibility. —The New Yorker

Complex, intriguing and haunting, Jansson's unusual short fiction is bound to enchant an English-speaking audience just as it did a Swedish-speaking one many years ago. —Shelf Awareness

“Jansson’s short stories are as yet unacknowledged small masterworks.” —Ali Smith

“They are tough as good rope, [Jansson’s stories], as smooth and odd and beautiful as seal³Y