Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Backlight

Backlight

Spangenberg, Mia
Saisio, Pirkko

Hardcover

General FictionGeneral GLBTQIA FictionLiterary Fiction

Publisher Price: $23.00

ISBN10: 1949641805
ISBN13: 9781949641806
Publisher: Two Lines Press
Published: Jun 10 2025
Pages: 280
Weight: 0.95
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.10 Depth: 8.10
Language: English
Pirkko Saisio, now a teenager, can't decide which she hates most: God, her father, or her growing breasts. Grandpa has moved into the room long promised to her, and Mother, overworked and distant, tries to keep the peace between her headstrong daughter and husband. When she's not escaping into her books, Pirkko has fun getting into trouble. That is until her Finnish teacher suggests she might have what it takes to be a real writer, but only if she is willing to work hard and make certain sacrifices.

Years later, Pirkko spends the historic summer of 1968 working at a Swiss orphanage. The world is shifting around her, and to make matters even more complicated: she's homesick. At the orphanage no one understands her German, and away from home for the first time, she struggles to make sense of her suppressed queerness. In Backlight, the Finlandia Prize-winning author looks backward and inward, once again emerging, in Mia Spangenberg's sensitive translation, with an intimate portrait of a life lived in language.

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