Hundepark

Sofi Oksanen's new novel about Ukraine is as prophetic as it is hauntingly relevant. The award-winning Finnish bestselling author Sofi Oksanen takes us into the world of wealthy European women who fulfill their desire for children through egg donations, at the expense of poorer women from the East or developing countries, who have no choice in their desperation. A novel of great political and moral urgency and literary brilliance.

Helsinki, 2016. Olenka sits on a park bench and observes a family: mother, father, two children. When a woman sits down next to her, she is startled; she would recognize this woman anywhere, for Olenka has destroyed her life. And surely she has come to take revenge. For a brief moment, they are together here – watching their own children, who are unaware of their existence, play.

The novel, which moves between present-day Finland and Ukraine after the collapse of the USSR, is a sharply observed, fast-paced text that plays at the intersection of East and West and revolves around a web of exploitation and the commercialization of the female body. Sofi Oksanen tells with psychological acuity the gripping story of a woman who cannot escape the longing for her lost child, and of the ruthless forces that relentlessly pursue her.