about carina

I was born in Helsinki in 1960, and apparently I decided quite early what I wanted to do with my life. At the age of seven, I already knew I wanted to become a writer.

Books have been among my closest companions ever since.

Another constant has been the archipelago.

I was two years old when my family first began spending our summers there. I grew up as a summer visitor among islands, rocks, boats and the sea, never knowing that my connection to the place went much further back.

Many years later, genealogical research revealed that my ancestors had lived in the same archipelago – in fact, in the neighbouring village to the one where I had spent my summers all my life.

I find that rather wonderful.

Perhaps we do not always choose the places that become important to us.

Perhaps sometimes they choose us.

FROM JOURNALIST TO AUTHOR

I studied journalism and went on to work in newspapers, radio and television. Later, life led me into my former husband's family business, where I spent ten years running its advertising department.

But the seven-year-old who wanted to write books had not disappeared.

In 1998, I left my job because there was a book I needed to write.

It became Strandsatta – Kvinnoöden från Finska viken till Ishavet, an interview-based documentary book telling the stories of eleven archipelago women in four different countries.

When it was published in 2001, it became my breakthrough as an author.

That same year, I founded my own publishing house, Vingpennan. For the following twenty years I published my own books there.

I have written all my books in Swedish, primarily for Finland's Swedish-speaking minority.

I have written eleven children's books, documentary and historical books for adults and, together with my Swedish colleague Gudrun Wessnert, three crime comedies.

My children's books have found generations of young readers and are read in Swedish-language primary schools throughout Finland. I have also spent many years meeting my readers through talks and school visits – something I have always enjoyed.

PAINTING WITH WORDS

My readers sometimes tell me that I paint with words – that they can see the places I describe and almost smell them.

That makes me happy, because it is exactly what I want language to do.

I want a setting to be more than a backdrop. I want the reader to feel the wind, smell the sea and hear the sounds around the characters.

I am also very particular about how words sound.

Before a manuscript goes to print, I read the entire book aloud to myself several times. A sentence may look perfectly good on the page and still be wrong when spoken.

For me, words need rhythm.

They need to sit comfortably in the mouth.

Perhaps that is also why my children's books have always worked particularly well when read aloud.

HISTORY, RESEARCH AND THE UNSEEN

I love research.

When I write about history, I want to know far more than will ever appear on the page. How did people live? What did they eat? What did their work do to their hands and bodies? What did the sea mean to them? What were they afraid of? What did they believe?

The details matter because people matter.

Much of my writing has been about the archipelago and the people who have lived there. My historical book Piga, klockare, inhysing, lots – Skärgårdsöden från 1669 till 1809, for example, follows the lives of four generations in the Hitis archipelago.

But not everything that fascinates me can be found in an archive.

Folklore, energies, spirits, magic and Tarot are also part of my world.

The spiritual world is a natural part of my everyday life, and I communicate with my spirit guides daily. To me, the unseen is not a question of belief, but another dimension of life – one that has guided, surprised and helped me in many different ways.

I don't see a contradiction between this and my passion for meticulous historical research.

I am fascinated by both.

What we can document.

And what we experience but cannot always explain.

THE BOOK THAT TOOK TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

The Fire Charmer – Where Souls Meet Again brings many of these threads together.

History. The sea. The unseen. Human destinies. And the strange ways in which one life may touch another.

I worked on the novel for almost twenty-five years before completing it in 2025.

I could not have finished it when I began it.

I needed to grow older. I needed certain experiences. And I needed to grow spiritually before I understood the story well enough to finish telling it.

There is a reason for that.

Readers of The Fire Charmer will eventually discover it for themselves.

When I am not writing, researching history or working with Tarot, you will quite often find me in my garden.

I also have two daughters and three granddaughters.

Yes, all girls.

Apparently the women in my family believe in strength in numbers.

Author portraits: Henni Hyvärinen