Fiction | Pekka Juntti
When Samuel finds out that Nanok and Inuk, two of the prestigious mushing dogs have gone lost, and within only a few days have gone wild and learned to hunt, the young man is determined to track the huskies down, tame them and take them home. Samuel ventures deeper and deeper into the wilderness of the breathtaking Arctic landscape, and in a near-death experience learns that there are still places where nature is predominant. Despite warnings, he continues his dangerous quest for the dogs and encounters secretive habitants of the forgotten villages. Among them mysterious Aava, who takes him to her hut on midsummer eve, when the sun doesn’t set, and night becomes day. Aava makes Samuel discover love and the magic of the surrounding forests and lakes. But not all villagers mean well, and Samuel soon finds himself trapped in a remote hut, calculating food rations. His forces are fading. How many days will he survive? And will he be found before that? Gradually Samuel realizes that the villagers share a secret that is greater than any individual’s dream.
Wild Dog (Villikoira) 350 pages | First published in Finnish in 2022 by Otava
‘The author masters the flashbacks and advances the narration with ease (…). The language is assured and strong, built for storytelling. The novel is a combination of a thriller, a love story, and a nature story, and surprisingly such a combination works. For me the novel belongs to the page-turner-category.’ Mikko Jämsén, Keskisuomalainen 4
© Pekka juntti
A powerful debut novel, set in the forgotten villages of Lapland where people and trees take care of each other.
PEKKA JUNTTI (b. 1980) is an award-winning journalist and a popular columnist, working in Lapland. He lives with his wife and three children in Haparanda, in the Tornio Valley, Sweden, just across the Finnish boarder. Juntti was one of the authors of the hugely successful book The Forest After Us, which won the Finlandia non-fiction Prize in 2019. Wild Dog is Juntti’s debut novel and inspired by a newspaper article Juntti wrote about the lost husky Nanok.
"Pekka Juntti builds high expectations with successful characters and narration" (…) "Although Pajtim Statovc’ novel MY CAT YUGOSLAVIA and Juntti’s WILD DOG are geographically and linguistically far apart, they contain some of the same mystique in their spirit." Kultturitoimitus
"Northern nature and love unite in journalist Pekka Juntti’s excellent debut novel." Keskisuomalainen
