This book was a bit of a publishing sensation when it came out in Finland 2020, and it’s been translated as: The Women I Think about at Night: Traveling the Paths of My Heroes by Douglas Robinson.
Listening to it in Finnish, it reads like a highly personal and intimate travel narrative, an exploration of what it means to be an author, and a feminist historical account of a few key women artists, writers, and travellers. These “women I think of at night” act as totems and tentpoles for her writing and travelling.
I like the premise of exploring your connections to historical figures, women you think about at night. I think there could have been more diversity or more obscurity in the figures discussed, as many of them were already familiar to me. A lot of the most interesting people in history have left very few records. However, I do love Karen Blixen as a writer, and she was extensively covered.
This is a highly personal and individual take, and the book does leave some key aspects of colonialism and social inequity unexplored. Especially when looking at travels in the 19th century, there were many opportunities to “go there” more.
It’s an imaginative and genre-defying book and I appreciate the peak behind the veil of the author as she shares her struggles, thoughts, and insecurities.
Read this if you want to go on a journey through the lens of historic women travellers and artists.
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