Riikka Pelo

I am an author and a researcher of cinematography from Helsinki. My debut novel Taivaankantaja (The Heaven-Bearer) was published in 2006 by Teos and was nominated for the Runeberg literary prize, amongst other things. I am also working on several film scripts and artistic scriptwriting –related dissertations at the Department of Motion Picture, Television and Production Design (Aalto University School of Art and Design). In 2004, I graduated as a Master of Arts from the Media Lab at the Aalto University School of Art and Design. My main focus was on narrative and scriptwriting in new media. I previously studied comparative literature and worked as an editor of fiction. Of all narrative forms, prose is closest to my heart as it most nearly falls into the rhythm of my breathing.

At the Saari Residence, I will be finalizing my second novel which deals with the lives of the Russian poet, Marina Tsvetajeva, and her daughter, Ariadna Efron. Through the characters of my novel, I contemplate questions about the ability to love and its limits, and in particular, about what keeps this family together and how the experience of mutual love and happiness, or their impossibility, is formed.