The True Deceiver () von Tove Jansson

The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson Translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal Introduced by Ali Smith A book of haunting suspense, a dark companion to The Summer Book, introduced by Ali Smith. In the deep winter snows of a Swedish hamlet, a strange young woman fakes a break-in at the house of an elderly artist in order to persuade her that she needs companionship. But what does she hope to gain by doing this? And who ultimately is deceiving whom? In this portrayal of two women encircling each other with truth and lies, nothing can be taken for granted. By the time the snow thaws, both their lives will have changed irrevocably. First ever publication in English, in a translation by Thomas Teal.

The writer and artist Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is best known as the creator of the Moomin stories, which have been published in thirty-five languages. However, from 1968, she turned her attention to writing for adults. Her bestseller, The Summer Book, is a modern Scandinavian classic. The True Deceiver was published ten years later. Thomas Teal has translated Tove Jansson's The Summer Book, Fair Play, for which he was awarded the Bernard Shaw Prize for translation from the Swedish for the years 2007-2009; The True Deceiver, winner of the Rochester Best Translated Book Award for 2011 and the forthcoming, Art in Nature. Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962 and lives in Cambridge, England. She is the author of Free Love and Other Stories, Like, Hotel World, Other Stories and Other Stories, and Girl Meets Boy. Her novel The Accidental was named the 2005 Whitbread Novel of the Year and shortlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize and the 2006 Orange Prize.