Taking their troll

You may know the Moomins from the many, many memes. Or from the very few books. As the little trolls turn 80, see how they were born during WW2, amid a wish for a gentler world

- K Narayanan

The English-speaking world tends to be resistant to children’s literature from other languages. “Serious” literature — whether in French, Russian or Sanskrit — finds its way across language barriers, helped along by awards and prizes, but this genre has it harder.

How many young Indian readers have heard of Tetsuko Kuroyanagi and her book, Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window (1981), the bestselling Japanese book of all time? The Brazilian José Mauro de Vasconcelos’s My Sweet Orange Tree (1968) is a children’s classic in the Portuguese-speaking world, butiis far-less-known in the English.

One children’s classic that has made it past the language barrier and into the popu-Jar cultural consciousness, albeit belatedly, is Tove Jansson's Moomin series.

Beloved in Scandinavia, particularly in the author's native Finland, and immensely popular in Japan, the Moomins are now having their moment in the sun in the English-speaking world too.

Moomins are a kind of troll. They look like bipedal hippopotami, and are smail and soft. Jansson (1914-2001) once said they were partly inspired bya story her uncle once told her, about strange little creatures who lived in his pantry and came out to rub their cold noses on food thieves.