(1914–2001)
Finnish author, novelist, painter, illustrator, and comic strip author
Tove Jansson
Fillyjonk knew that autumn had arrived, and she shut herself up inside. Her house looked completely closed and deserted. But she was there, deep deep inside behind the high impenetrable walls and the dense fir-trees that hid her windows. The quiet transition from autumn to winter is not a bad time at all. It’s a time for protecting and securing things and for making sure you’ve got in as many supplies as you can. It’s nice to gather together everything you possess as close to you as possible, to store up your warmth and your thoughts and burrow yourself into a deep hole inside, a core of safety where you can defend what is important and precious and your very own.
Moominvalley in November (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), 5–6. Originally published in Swedish in 1970, English in 1971.