Tove Jansson

Tove Jansson (b.09 August 1914, d. 27 June 2001) was a Finnish author and painter. Her mother tongue was Swedish, the language of all her writing. She is famous for the Moomin children's books which she wrote and illustrted, and which were made into a television cartoon series. The Moomins are a family of white and roundish trolls with large snouts. Jansson wrote and illustrated the first Moomin book during World War II.

Among her other fiction is Bildhuggarens dotter (Sculptor's Daughter), a semi-autobiographical book written in 1968 and five more novels, including Sommarboken (1972, The Summer Book) and five collections of short stories including A Winter Book (2006).

She was born in Helsinki, when it was part of the Russian Empire, and also died there at the age of 86.