This may be the final page, the one I write after everything has already happened. The one I will tear out at the end of the notebook and place between the cover and the blank title page. The first word on it is your name: that way you will know at once the sentences on the upcoming pages are for you as much as they are for myself.
It is the morning after everything.
From where I sit, I can see the dust-grey plain and the hills that yield to its shadows, the bare slopes of craters. The moonscape is lifeless as a sea turned to stone, unless you count the remote glow of the dome village, near-invisible. The horizon runs across the desert as a black brush-stroke. At the bottom edge of the sky made from night floats the rising Earth, its outlines clear and air-light. The cloud-rime on its surface looks rigid against blue and yellow and brown. It reminds me of the first frost of winter that stalls the fallen leaves on the surface of a pond.
It is as if there is more green than yesterday. It must be my imagination. It is too early yet.
“The Moonday Letters is a thing entirely its own, full of melancholy, a sense of wonder and hope. It takes you on a shamanistic journey to a living and breathing future, carried by a mystery that slowly unravels. Itäranta is a compelling narrator who also knows when to pause to conjure stunning images with her always confident, exquisitely polished prose.” – Hannu Rajaniemi, author of The Quantum Thief and Summerland
“The Moonday Letters ticks all the boxes for me. The solitary vastness of interplanetary space entwines with myths and mysteries of the ancient North; a personal tragedy interacts elegantly with the enormous ecological challenges of the future; and through the whole enchanting story echoes Itäranta’s exquisite, poetic, visionary writer’s voice.” - Johanna Sinisalo, author of The Storm Flute and Strangers Inside
The Moonday Letters (Kuunpäivän kirjeet) is out from Titan Books and Recorded Books in July 2022.
Emmi Itäranta’s third novel The Moonday Letters (Kuunpäivän kirjeet) has won the Tähtivaeltaja Award for the best science fiction novel published in the Finnish language in 2020. The jury described the book as follows:
“The book, crisp and flowing in terms of style, is an epistolary novel consisting of the messages its main character, Finnish-born Lumi Salo, writes to her spouse who works far away. The accomplished narration blends several timelines and fragments of history, news material, research knowledge and even advertisements. These form a many-stranded, consistent picture of humanity that has spread out to the Moon, Mars, space stations and gas giant satellites.”
Here is a collection of interviews which appeared both in print and online, where Emmi talks about _The Moonday Letters, the movie version of _Memory of Water, climate change, bilingual writing and writing in general, plus many other interesting things.
29.9.2021 Muurame library klo 18.00
Emmi Itäranta as the author guest, interviewed by Vesa Lahti.
2.10.2021 Turku Book Fair: Klo 10.30: The Moonday Letters (Fiore hall A), klo 11.30: Interviewed by High Schoolers (Turku Area Finnish Teachers, A19), klo 16.50: Panel discussion: The Author and the Publisher (Fiore hall A)
29.10.2021 Helsinki Book Fair
Klo 17.00: 2040 – Stories About the Future of Democracy (Senaatintori)
5.12.2021 Tampere Book Festival
Klo 15.00: The Moonday Letters (Sopraano)
On Monday January 25th 2021 from 6 to 7 PM Emmi will be virtual-visiting Kirjasaari at the City Library of Oulu to talk about The Moonday Letters, multilingual writing, climate change and writing in general. She will be interviewed by librarian Jaana Märsynaho.
