In the bitter winds of autumn 1963, Tove Jansson, helped by Brunstr-m, a maverick fisherman, raced to build a cabin on a treeless skerry in the Gulf of Finland. The island was Klovharun, and for thirty summers Tove and her beloved partner, the graphic artist, Tuulikki Pietil-retreated there to live, paint and write, energised by the solitude and shifting seascapes.Notes from an Island, published in English for the first time, is both a chronicle of this period and a homage to the mature love that Tove and ''Tooti'' shared for their island and for each other. Tove''s spare prose, and Tuulikki''s subtle washes and aquatints combine to form a work of meditative beauty.''... Tooti wandered aimlessly around the island and stood stock still for long periods. I thought I knew what she was doing. She was working again. Copperplate etchings and wash drawings. Mostly the lagoon, the lagoon as a consummate mirror for clouds and birds, the lagoon in a storm, in fog. And the granite, first and fore
