Vysněná smrt – Krohnová Leena (2021)

The satirical novel Dream Death by Leena Krohn is one of the most philosophically ambitious works of Finnish prose in recent decades. It takes place in a dystopian world where a person can pay for a custom-designed death when they tire of living, or conversely, invest in the prospect of eternal life. Insomniac anesthesiologist Lucia works at an institution called Dream Death and simultaneously at a so-called Freezer. The first institution offers affluent people a 'gourmet death,' while clients of the Freezer have their bodies frozen in the belief that science will find a cure for incurable diseases and mortality in the future. The detached doctor encounters a variety of peculiar cases, from troubled outsiders and mentally ill individuals to wrongdoers and unfortunate souls who have simply been let down by the world. She also notices strange events in the city: a creeping pandemic of sudden old age and a peculiar natural phenomenon that people call the 'winter bumblebee.' This magical realist text seeks to answer the question of how to cope with the absurdity of life and unfulfilled dreams, how to maintain a healthy perspective in a world saturated with advertising and injustice, and how to age gracefully, whether you are twenty-five, fifty, or one hundred years old.