Tove Jansson‘s Moomin character, Moomintroll, famously says, “I only want to live in peace, plant potatoes and dream!” This quote reflects a desire for a simple, peaceful life, finding joy in everyday activities and imagination. The quote is often associated with the Moomins’ idyllic world and the value of small pleasures.
Tove Marika Jansson (Fenno-Swedish: [ˈtuːve ˈjɑːnsːon]; 9 August 1914 – 27 June 2001) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish author, novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from 1930 to 1938 in Helsinki, Stockholm, and Paris. She held her first solo art exhibition in 1943.
Over the same period, she penned short stories and articles for publication, and subsequently drew illustrations for book covers, advertisements, and postcards. She continued her work as an artist and writer for the rest of her life.
Jansson wrote the Moomin novel series for children, starting with the 1945 The Moomins and the Great Flood. The following two books, Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll, published in 1946 and 1948 respectively, were highly successful, and sales of the first book increased correspondingly. For her work as a children’s author she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966; among her many later awards was the Selma Lagerlöf Prize in 1992. Her Moomin stories have been adapted for the theatre, the cinema, and as an opera.
Tove Jansson worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish-language satirical magazine Garm from 1929 to 1953, when the magazine ceased production. One of her political cartoons achieved a brief international fame: she drew Adolf Hitler as a crying baby in diapers, surrounded by Neville Chamberlain and other great European leaders, who tried to calm the baby down by giving it slices of cake – Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc. In the Second World War, during which Finland fought against the Soviet Union, part of the time cooperating with Nazi Germany, her cover illustrations for Garm lampooned both Hitler and Joseph Stalin: in one, Stalin draws his sword from his impressively long scabbard, only to find it absurdly short; in another, multiple Hitlers ransack a house, carrying away food and artworks. In The Spectator’s view, Jansson made both “Hitler and Stalin appear as preposterous little figures, self-important and comic”.
