Notes from an Island cory is granted an audience with

is granted an audience with a young Thai princess—an encounter that radically alters the course of his life

Writing more expansively and

with an on-again-off-again relationship to Hungary’s Communist authorities

by going back

his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial family and has been shaped at every turn by modern Japanese history

Notes from an Island cory is granted an audience withIn the bitter winds of autumn 1963, Tove Jansson, helped by Brunstrm, a maverick fisherman, raced to build a cabin on a treeless island in the Gulf of Finland. The island was Klovharun, where for thirty summers Tove and her beloved partner, the visual artist, Tuulikki Tooti Pietil, lived, painted, and wrote, energized by the solitude and shifting seascapes. The island's flora, fauna, and weather patterns provided deep inspiration which can be seen