ISBN 978-0-7206-1171-7
Fiction
224pp
Paperback Original
£12.50
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Not Before Sundown

Johanna Sinisalo

Translated from the Finnish by Herbert Lomas

The international fantasy best-seller and winner of the Finlandia Prize

Mikael, a young gay photographer, finds in the courtyard of his apartment block a small, man-like creature. It is a young troll, known from Scandinavian mythology as a demonic wild beast, a hybrid like the werewolf. Supposedly extinct, today it is regarded as a hairy, cuddly toy by Nordic children.

Mikael gives the troll a name, Pessi, and takes him home and hides him. The first thing Mikael does is research everything he can about trolls from the internet, from folklore, nature journals and newspaper cuttings. What Mikael does not discover is that trolls exude pheromones that smell like a Calvin Klein aftershave and that this has a profound aphrodisiac effect on all those around him.

Shooting an assignment for an ultra-hip brand of jeans, Mikael finds himself fast-tracked into a dangerous liaison with Martes, the sexually ambivalent art director of the advertising agency concerned, while a couple of his friends in turn fall in love with him because he carries the troll's scent.

What Mikael fails above all to learn, with tragic consequences, is that Pessi the troll is the interpreter of man's darkest, most forbidden impulses.

‘Chillingly seductive' - Independent, Best Reads of 2003

‘A sharp, resonant, prickly book that exists on the slipstream of SF, fantasy, horror and gay fiction’ - Neil Gaiman

‘Strange and erotic . . . the troll comes to life after hours, unleashing glittering desires’ - Guardian

‘A wily thriller-fantasy’ - New York Times

‘A punk version of The Hobbit’ - USA Today

‘Imaginative and engaging . . . ingeniously constructed and brightly accomplished' - Washington Post

‘Simple but very powerful . . . A thoughtful, inspiring and rewarding work' - Gay Times

‘Would be Ibsen’s The Wild Duck - if the duck were the main love interest’ - Village Voice

‘A brilliant and dark parable about the fluid boundaries between human and animal' - Boston Globe


JOHANNA SINISALO was born in Finnish Lapland in 1958. Not Before Sundown, her acclaimed first novel, has been translated into eight languages and is the first Finnish fiction to be published in this country for six years. Also known in Finland for her television and comic-strip writing, Johanna has, in addition to the Finlandia Award, won the Atorox Prize for best Finnish science fiction or fantasy story six times and has been the winner of the Kemi National Comic Strip Contest three times.