Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Sofi Oksanen is a Finnish-Estonian novelist and playwright. She has received numerous prizes for her work, including the Swedish Academy Nordic Prize, the Prix Femina, the Budapest Grand Prize, the European Book Prize, and the Nordic Council Literature Prize. She lives in Helsinki.
This bio was last updated on 03/18/2015. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
What led you to write When the Doves Disappeared?
Most European countries didn't go through this during World War II, but the Baltic states have a history of double occupations: two Soviet occupations and one German occupation.
In my previous Estonia-related novel, Purge, I focused on the Soviet occupations. German occupation is such a big issue that I realized I would need a separate novel to cover it.
So I started work on When the Doves Disappeared, which takes place during both the Soviet and German
occupations. This was in 2010, at a time when the old Soviet-style propaganda about the Baltic states
was back in full swing in contemporary Russia, and I noticed this tended to confuse people abroad. If we don't know how Soviet propaganda was originally created and used, we can't understand Russia today – and then we aren't able to understand today's political situation.
Why did you choose to center the narrative around two time periods – the mid-40s during World War II and then the mid-60s during the days of communism in the Soviet bloc?
In the West, the image of the 60s is Woodstock. It wasn't Woodstock in the Soviet Union. The 60s was a period when the KGB took new ...
Born in Lima, Peru in 1977, Alarcón was raised in Birmingham, Alabama. He is Associate Editor of Etiqueta Negra, an award-winning magazine published in his native Peru, and in 2013 served as a Fellow in the Investigative... (more)
If you enjoyed:
When the Doves Disappeared
Try:
At Night We Walk in Circles
by Daniel Alarcon
Anne Applebaum was born in 1964, and was educated at Sidwell Friends School before earning a BA at Yale. Anne went on to earn a Masters Degree at the London School of Economics, before moving to Warsaw, Poland in 1988 as a ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
When the Doves Disappeared
Try:
Iron Curtain
by Anne Applebaum
We recommend 11 similar authors
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Stone Home
by Crystal Hana Kim
A moving family drama and coming-of-age story revealing a dark corner of South Korean history.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
