Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

Veijo Baltzar. - Photo: Eva Persson

Veijo Baltzar has constructed a solid, full-blooded tale of Roma beliefs and customs built on a foundation of grim reality

Veijo Baltzar’s eighth novel, Sodassa ja rakkaudessa (’In love and war’, Tammi, 2008), is the story of a Roma community living on the outskirts of a German town from the end of the 1930s, through the concentration camps of the Second World War to the end of the war. Two young Romas emerge as the book’s main characters – Kastalo, an orphan shoe-shine boy and pickpocket who grew up on the streets, and Carinja, a young girl from a respectable Roma family with whom he falls in love. Obstacles to the misalliance arise from Carinja’s parents, her brother Giri, and her arranged bridegroom Bustan, as well as the tumult of world history. More…