Katri Lipson

Katri Lipson was born in Helsinki, Finland, and grew up in nearby Vantaa, where she dreamed of becoming a writer and a physician--in that order. She finished medical school in Sweden in 1993, realizing a childhood dream when she went to Africa to work as a doctor. Her first novel, Kosmonautti (Cosmonaut), was published in 2008 and won the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize. Jäätelökauppias (The Ice Cream Man), her second novel, won the European Union Prize for Literature in 2013. She is a specialist in occupational medicine and lives in Vantaa with her family.