Occupation, violence, the female body, and power. Sofi Oksanen, one of the most prominent authors in contemporary Finnish and European literature, will speak with literary critic Jitka Hanušová about Putin’s war on women and more.

Sofi Oksanen is a Finnish-Estonian author and playwright. One of the most prominent Nordic authors today, her works have been translated into more than forty languages. She made her international breakthrough with the novel Purge (2011), based on her play of the same name which was staged at the Finnish National Theatre in 2007. The novel won numerous awards including the Finlandia Prize, the Nordic Council Literature Prize, the Prix Femina Étranger, and the European Book Prize, and it was adapted into a film and an opera. Other works of hers published in English include When the Doves Disappeared (2016), Norma (2017), and Dog Park (2021). Her most recent book is Same River, Twice: Putin’s War on Women (2025), in which she writes about Russian imperialism, the invasion of Ukraine, and sexual violence as a weapon of war. The book was shortlisted for the 2026 Minna Canth Award and longlisted for the 2025 Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing. Oksanen has won numerous awards for her work, including, the Swedish Academy’s Nordic Prize, known informally as the little Nobel Prize.