My best memory from the University is connected to a theatre excursion led by professor Pirkko Koski. At the tail end of my studies, the Department of Theatre Research organized an excursion to Kajaani Town Theatre, where we were to watch the play Huutavan ääni korvessa (‘The Sound of a Shouting Man in the Wilds’) by Kristian Smeds.

We took a train to Kajaani. It was clear I was one of the oldest students on the trip. Pirkko Koski had asked me to come because Smeds was the topic of my master’s thesis. For years I had been trying to figure out exactly what high culture was, what good entertainment was, and where the line between the two was drawn. From there the discussion somehow shifted to Henning Mankell’s Wallander novels. I had read some of these detective stories and enjoyed them in secret. Then Pirkko Koski began to praise them. I felt like I could come out of the closet, that you were free to talk about all manner of literature and be open about your appreciation of even the more popular works.

In the group we then discussed what was great about the Wallander novels—the plot structure, the perceptive descriptions of the main characters and maintaining the interest of the reader throughout several places and times.