Recovering from cerebral haemorrhage, a father travels to St. Petersburg, which is preparing for its 300th anniversary. His son is working there as a gilder at the restoration of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The father wants to tell his son the final truth and correct the strange comments that seem to be contaminated by religion. The distance from the hotel to his son's jobsite is only a few kilometres, but on the way the big city pulls the old man into a world of grief, illusion, and joy. In the world's fourth largest dome, truth - whatever it might be - is revealed for father and son on the day of the city's anniversary.

In comic and tragic tones St Isaac's Cathedral tells how hard it is to keep the faith and how easy it is to mock it and what happens when we are stripped of dignity and given hospital slippers instead. With linguistic mastery, Hotakainen creates sentences that both soothe and shock. Written with divine skill!

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Faroese (Forlagid Sprotin)
Czech (Dybbuk)
Danish (Gyldendalske Boghandel)
Norwegian (Cappelen)
Swedish (Forum)

See other books from this author:

Finnhits

The Careless

The Human Lot

The Trench Road