RIIKKA PELO

“Writing the history, which hasn’t been written. Writing that, which could not have been uttered. Writing the unsaid.”

Riikka Pelo ( b. 1972) is a Finnish writer. Her debut novel Taivaankantaja (Heaven-Bearer) was published in 2006 (Teos). Her 2nd novel, Jokapäiväinen elämämme (Our Earthly Life) depicting the relationship of the Russian poet Martina Tsvetaeva and her daughter Ariadna Efron, was published in spring 2013 (Teos), and was awarded by Finlandia-prize, the main literary award in Finland. She has also published various essays in arts research and literary magazines such as Nuori Voima, Kritiikki and Journal of Screenwriting.

She is currently working on her third novel and a radio play for YLE Radio 1 (Finnish National Brodacasting Company), as well as on two feature film screenplays, All the Colours of Love (with Raija Talvio, dir. Taru Mäkelä) and The Girl and Death  (dir. Maria Ruotsala).

She teaches creative, experimental and essay writing in different universities and academies in Finland.

Pelo has two adult sons and lives in Helsinki with her family. She has also lived shorter periods in Berlin and Prague, where she was a guest singer of the cult band of the Velvet Revolution, Ecstasy of St. Theresa, in the early 1990’s.