[1] Kjell Westö studied journalism at the Swedish School of Social Science [sv] in Helsinki, and began his career as a journalist at Hufvudstadsbladet, Finland's largest Swedish-language newspaper, and at the politically left leaning magazine Ny Tid.

Kjell Westö's first novel, Drakarna över Helsingfors (Kites over Helsinki, 1996), made a huge impact on Swedish- and Finnish-speaking audiences in Finland.

His fourth novel, Där vi en gång gått (Where We Once Walked, 2006), secured Kjell Westö's status as an author for all of Finland and won him the Finlandia Prize.

In his depictions of different eras, Kjell Westö portrays fragile, vulnerable individuals and the impact the big historical events have on them.

Today, Kjell Westö's works have been translated into over 20 languages, and he is a seven-time recipient of awards from the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland.

It was published in 2017 in Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and Danish, with French, German and Dutch translation rights also sold; a film based on the novel was released in 2021.