On March 10, the Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan hosted a panel and readings in honor of Swedish-speaking Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, whose iconic Moomin characters turn 80 this year. “She created a world that is one of the most adored in modern literature,” said author Makenna Goodman, who moderated the event. Goodman served as editor of Jansson’s memoir Notes from an Island, recently translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal for Timber Press (Oct. 2024), and she believes that “the imagination and appetite for Tove’s work is growing.”
The discussion also featured author Alexander Chee, who contributed the introduction for Notes from an Island; Leanne Shapton, artist, graphic novelist, and art editor for the New York Review of Books; and author Kate Zambreno, who wrote a story inspired by Jansson’s The Summer Book for the catalogue accompanying an exhibition of the artist’s work in Paris in 2023.
Goodman began with an overview of Jansson’s oeuvre, including her Moomin comic strip and children’s books and the numerous adaptations they’ve spawned—from television, film, and opera retellings to theme parks in Finland and Japan—as well as 11 novels and short story collections for adults. “Tove was constantly transforming, experimenting, and evolving her art,” she said, “and even today, over two decades after her death, readers continue to be moved deeply by her work, which is known and discussed more and more as a life-affirming philosophical project.” Goodman also noted the utopian element of Jansson’s writing: “She taught us that imaginative storytelling can convey deeply human, inclusive ideas, and that writing a freer world can open an important door in the collective unconscious.”
After Shapton read aloud a passage from The Summer Book (NYRB, 2008, trans. by Teal)—in which an aging woman and her young granddaughter explore a cave on their island in the Gulf of Finland—Goodman posed what she called the guiding question for their conversation: “What is it about Tove Jansson’s work that makes it so captivating?”
Zambreno said she was struck by the interwoven yet seemingly contradictory themes of community and isolation; “the characters are alone in their own bubbles, yet they need each other.” She also highlighted “the collaboration between the human and the nonhuman” throughout the author’s books.
Chee added, “I think there’s a lot of tenderness, and that the stories, across categories, are created out of a tremendous intimacy.” He lauded Jansson’s directness and precision of language. Shapton agreed, saying, “I think that economy comes from knowing how to draw; she looks really closely.” The Moomins provided the perfect training ground for her “verbal and visual” sensibility.
Next, Zambreno read an excerpt from Sun City, translated by Teal for NYRB (Feb. 2025)—a satirical novel set in a retirement home in 1970s Florida. She appreciated the slowness and patience of the prose, as Jansson takes her time to conjure the atmosphere.
Goodman noticed how she “writes like a naturalist, the way she collects her materials and observations,” while Chee pointed to the “visual and sensual” quality of her writing. He suggested that the satire succeeds “because it’s sincere.”
For the evening’s final reading, Chee shared an excerpt from Notes from an Island, Jansson’s recollections of the home she built with her longtime creative and romantic partner, artist Tuulikki “Tooti” Pietilä, on Klovharun, an island in the Gulf of Finland. The women spent 30 summers living and working beside one another in that refuge before the elements became too difficult to endure in their old age. Zambreno commented on Jansson’s “yearning for the sublime,” which shines through her nature writing. The natural world inspired in her a sense of awe and humility; at times “she felt she was not worthy of her island,” Zambreno said.
Goodman framed the island as a version of the utopian fantasy presented in Moominland: “a paradise of collectivism and inclusivity and freedom.” Focusing the dialogue on Jansson’s books for young people, Shapton argued that “if you can write for children, you can write anything. It’s the hardest form—and there’s not quite an understanding of just how hard it is.” She believes Jansson held the key to unlocking the power of children’s literature because “she remembered what it’s like to be a child.” Zambreno reflected on the “joy and magic” in children’s books and cinema, and their ability to capture big ideas through the imagination, a kind of political act.
The impact of Jansson’s writing was evident in the sheer volume of fan mail she received for the Moomins. Goodman said the author “responded dutifully” to 2,000 letters a year from readers. Finally, she became so exhausted that she handed the series over to her younger brother, Lars. Goodman wondered if that kind of correspondence is possible in the digital age.
Zambreno said, “I wouldn’t be a writer if I wasn’t in conversation with others. All of my books come from that. Even a notebook is a correspondence in a way.” Chee spoke of a close, years-long connection he has forged with one of his readers through letters. Seeing the memoir (which she edited) in a new light, Goodman said, “I actually now think Notes on an Island is a kind of correspondence between Tove and Tooti,” whose art accompanies Jansson’s prose.
As the discussion opened up to the audience, a middle school teacher said that her students respond strongly to her readalouds of the Moomins, finding the characters “weird, but still relatable.” Another attendee said that her son told her “the Moomins gave him permission to live his gender identity”; the inclusive “politics of those books have become our [family’s] politics.”
Distilling the appreciation of Jansson’s craft, Shapton praised her “observation and quiet patience,” or, as one illustrator in the crowd put it, “she sees with her heart.”
