The Year of the Hare (UNESCO Collection of Representative Works)

The Year of the Hare introduces to British readers one of the most successful contemporary Finnish writers. As in Finland, the novel was a runaway best-seller in France, where it became a cult book.
A journalist and a photographer set out on an assignment on a lovely sunny evening. As they drive through the country they hit a young hare. Vatanen, the journalist, leaves the car and goes in search of the injured creature. This event is the catalyst for a series of bizarre adventures, which take Vatanen beyond the Arctic Circle and into Soviet Russia.
Vatanen, middle-aged, dissatisfied, a 'deceived and deceiving' husband in a childless marriage, sells his yacht for ready cash and escapes his confining life in Helsinke. Accompanied by his friend the hare, he lives on his wits and by doing various manual jobs in the wild, thus gaining a total sense of the freedom he has always craved. His picaresque travels lead eventually to his arrest and imprisonment. But that is not quite the end of the story, to which his encounter with the beguiling Leila brings a final happy twist.