Lowest Common Denominator

Declarative, deadpan, very funny… an uninhibited portrait of a queer woman’s childhood in all its contradictory desires * TLS *
Playful… The voice is as charming as any good child narrative is… Her childhood is typically universal, typically unique… A bestseller in Finland. You can see why – John Self * The Critic *
Droll, sardonic… A piquant account of a childhood and a time… Saisio sketches a poignant, funny-sad picture of a communist family in Cold War Finland. In both substance and style, comparisons with Ali Smith may come to mind – Boyd Tonkin * Spectator *
A brilliant book, half modernist poem and half classic comic of age novel. For anyone who ever became a writer – James Rebanks
Playful and profound, Lowest Common Denominator offers a captivating glimpse into twentieth-century Finland through the eyes of a charismatic child narrator. I loved it – Fiona Mozley
One of Finland’s greatest living authors… Lowest Common Denominator, elegantly translated by Mia Spangenberg, is the first of her works to be published in English and the first in her Helsinki trilogy, which is in the peculiarly bleak Scandinavian tradition of autofiction * New Statesman *
Like Annie Ernaux but funny – Irène Bluche * rbbKultur *
This is both family history and contemporary political history, sexual self-discovery and artist biography… moving and clever, funny and beautiful * NZZ am Sonntag, Best Books of the Century *
If you love Deborah Levy, you’ll adore Pirkko Saisio * Le Masque et la plume *
Long an object of study in Finland, Saisio’s work is beginning to gain more global recognition now, cementing her place in the canon of autofiction that also includes the Nordic writers Karl Ove Knausgaard and Tove Ditlevsen – Niina Pollari * Los Angeles Review of Books *

Pirkko Saisio (born 1949) is one of Finland’s most celebrated writers as well as an actor and theatre director. The author of numerous novels, plays and scripts for film and television, Saisio has been nominated for the Finlandia Prize seven times, winning it in 2003. She has, among other awards, received the Aleksis Kivi Prize and the State Literature Award. Lowest Common Denominator is the first volume in her Helsinki trilogy, followed by Backlight and The Red Book of Farewells.

Mia Spangenberg translates from Finnish, Swedish and German. She is the winner of the Nadia Christensen Prize for her translation of Lowest Common Denominator.

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