Description
From Sofi Oksanen, the internationally bestselling author of Purge, comes a captivating story about a woman unable to escape the memory of her lost child, the ruthless powers that still haunt her, and the lies that could well end up saving her.
Helsinki, 2016. Olenka sits on a bench, watching a family play in a dog park. A stranger sits down beside her. Olenka startles; she would recognize this other woman anywhere. After all, Olenka was the one who ruined her life. And this woman may be about to do the same to Olenka. Yet, for a fragile moment, here they are, together — looking at their own children being raised by other people.
Moving seamlessly between modern-day Finland and Ukraine in the early days of its post-Soviet independence, Dog Park is a keenly observed, dark, and propulsive novel set at the intersection of East and West, centered on a web of exploitation and the commodification of the female body.
About the authors
SOFI OKSANEN is a Finnish Estonian novelist and playwright. Her novel Purge won the Prix Femina and the Nordic Council Literature Prize, and When the Doves Disappeared was the winner of the Swedish Academy Nordic Prize and longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Her previous novel, Norma, was a #1 bestseller in Finland and was a finalist for the Young Aleksis Literature Prize and the New Academy Prize in Literature. Oksanen was recently awarded a Medal of Honour by the Ukrainian Association in Finland. She has also received the Budapest Grand Prize, the European Book Prize, and the Chevalier Medal of Honour from the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. She lives in Helsinki.
OWEN F. WITESMAN is a translator of Finnish and Estonian into English. He has translated works by Finlandia Prize–winning author Kari Hotakainen, Juhani Aho, and Leena Lehtolainen, among others. He lives in Utah.
Excerpt: Dog Park (by (author) Sofi Oksanen; translated by Owen F. Witesman)
HELSINKI 2016
Perhaps everything would have gone differently if I had recognized her immediately and known I should flee. But I didn’t; I didn’t even turn my head when the stranger sat down at the end of the bench with a slowness to her movements that suggested an expectation of pain. Hoping she would understand that I wasn’t looking for conversation, I loudly rustled the pages of the book resting in my lap. I wasn’t in this park looking for company.
The book belonged to the library located just a stone’s throw from the park and its fenced dog run. Carrying a bag bulging with novels made my stops at the park look natural. Whenever anyone happened to ask, I told them how much I liked animals and watching them play but that due to my allergies, I couldn’t keep a pet of my own. The woman sitting next to me also didn’t have a dog, I noticed, but otherwise my attention was focused on the street surrounding the park. Furtively I glanced at my watch, although I knew I was on time. I was afraid I’d come for nothing.
The woman extended her legs out straight and stretched, as people often do when considering how to initiate conversation — a yawn, a straightening of a jacket, or a hand gesture laying the foundation for comments about the weather or other trivialities. However, no question came about my book nor any platitudes about the temperature.
Scooting to the other end of the bench, I increased my distance from the interloper. Recently I’d begun watching in a new way the other people idling in the park. The retirees and unemployed people strolling here just needed an excuse to get out. Perhaps someday I would be like that, after I no longer had any actual reason for visiting the park or any schedule to my life. Then I too would want my neighbors to hear the bang of my front door as a sign that I was busy and had friends to visit, and then I would come here to be part of the world by watching other people’s lives.
A white miniature schnauzer approaching the dog park received admiring glances from passersby. My companion on the bench perked up. As she leaned forward slightly, I expected her to finally screw up the courage to say something, maybe about the schnauzer’s photogenic grooming or its exemplary obedience, but the woman remained silent.
Editorial Reviews
Following her incredibly popular Purge, Sofi Oksanen gives us another propulsive thriller about a woman unable to forget her lost child and the web of lies she’s built around herself. A novelist and playwright, Oksanen is one of the most awarded literary authors in Scandinavia; now, we get to experience the phenomenon.
Lit Hub
In Dog Park, as in her other fictions, Ms. Oksanen mines living history, digging up toxic societal elements that have explosive power … The slow build and devious plotting of Dog Park will tantalize the Rubik’s Cube–minded, and the book offers the retrospective satisfaction of infinite replay, like a game with multiple resolutions.
Wall Street Journal
