Published for the first time in the 19th century by Elias Lönnrot who travelled the remote Karelian woods gathering wisdom and stories from local Kantele singers and compiling them in one long epic poem, the Kalevala became the starting point of Finnish literature and its national epic.
In 2011, Tilman Spreckelsen and Kat Menschik traveled in Elias Lönnrot’s footsteps to Finland and what is now once again Russian Karelia. Spreckelsen retells the story of the Kalevala (and Elias Lönnrot’s search for it) in prose, and Kat Menschik provides magnificent illustrations to accompany this grand display of mythical stories.
