Rights sold: Czech Republic: Albatros Media a.s. - Kniha Zlinczech
"The story of This Transparent Heart captures reader’s attention immediately with its deep insight into a humand mind, riveting plot of forbidden love and expressive poetic language." – Jitka Hanušová, Kniha Zlin, Albatros Media, Czech Republic
The much awaited new novel
THIS TRANSPARENT HEART
TÄMÄ LÄPINÄKYVÄ SYDÄN, 2021, OTAVA
“Our bones clatter against one another and try to push each other out of the way. But inside us, it is warm and slippery.”
An intense and intimate novel about the forbidden love between a misfit Finnish woman and a Soviet POW during World War II.
Young Beata returns home to Hanko, Southern Finland, after the Soviet army has fled the town. When she happens to meet Ivan, a POW who seems to see straight into her heart, her life changes irrevocably. Though the clandestine passion threatens both lovers’ lives, they cannot stay away from one another. Yet the day will come when Beata will have to wonder whether she really knows her lover at all - or even herself.
A riveting and beautiful portrayal of hatred’s legacy, and its only counterforce, connection between people.
“In addition to being a delicate and personal matter, love is depicted from a strongly social point of view in This Transparent Heart. […] One has to compliment the author of the thorough background research, the fine emotional depth and the touching expression.“ – Helsingin Sanomat
“Love is a disruption that breaks the front lines in Katja Kallio’s exquisite novel.“– Helsingin Sanomat
“Anything you want to read, read it fast before you read this novel. Afterwards, no other novel will satisfy you. That’s how brilliant This Transparent Heart is.” – Mira Selander, Yle (Finnish National Radio)
”Overwhelming.” – Mia Kankimäki, author of Women I Think about at Night
"AN IMPOSSIBLE LOVE
In Katja Kallio’s beautiful novel young and wild Beata falls fervently in love with a Ukranian prisoner of war. Bellowing wartime Hanko stands as a background for marching Germans but there’s a slowly kindling spark of hope of reconstruction. The depiction of families returning to the ruined town of Hanko is touching and extremely interesting. The Russians had left the houses blue-painted, the flours were tainted with fuel oil and mines were hid in candelabras. Katja Kallio uses a language that is poetically fluid, and she has got the facts straight. After reading the book one has a burning need to start investigating the fates of Russian prisoners-of-war and the German camps." – Gloria Magazine
"Makes you rethink how you perceive history in general." – Kulttuuritoimitus
"This Transparent Heart’ is an important and interesting work. The events take place in Hanko but the depiction of people as helpless victims under the everchanging power relations during the wartime is a universal theme and very true even today in different parts of the world. The book is strongly based on facts but the dreamlike narration and the poetic language elevate it into an overwhelming love story in which the end is tragic." - Annelin lukuvinkit blog
"Katja Kallio writes sensual text, playing with metaphors that rush forward. The fluency of the narrative felt like a warm bath. Using metaphors in a generous way might feel complex and exhausting but Kallio’s style is very airy. – A novel full of intriguing themes. With this novel, Kallio strengthens her position as a novelist with a unique voice." – Kirjaluotsi blog