This is Sophia from The Summer Book, grown to adulthood and into possession of her own island cabin. That it's a memoir of Tove and Tooti's life on the small rock skerry of Klovharun is both incidental and central.

As with much of Tove's adult writing, this is a quiet book, telling of little moments which seem inconsequential and mundane, and which fit together into an intimate picture of life and lives shared.

Tooti's monochrome watercolour wash paintings of the islands are, not unsurprisingly, a perfect and evocative accompaniment to Tove's writing.

After finishing the book, I watched a few trailers for the film, "Haru, Island of the Solitary", which was edited together from cine camera footage the two shot of their island life, and now I want to hunt down the DVD of the whole film. This short French documentary (with English subtitles) is wonderful, including an interview with Tove's niece, Sophia, filmed on Klovharun: https://youtu.be/sjRfrpKeDU0 ( )

Color photocopy of the original