Rosa Liksom

Rosa Liksom fascinates me because she refuses to stay in one lane. Writer, painter, photographer, playwright, translator, born in the far Finnish north of Ylitornio, she treats every medium as just another way to see. The awards back it up: a Finlandia Prize, a State Prize for Literature, even a French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. I am especially struck that she shed her birth name, Anni Ylävaara, to invent an artistic identity, as if the self were one more thing to compose. There is a stark, Arctic clarity to that kind of reinvention, and it makes me genuinely curious to sit with her work.

Name (English)

Rosa Liksom

Name (Japanese)

ロサ・リクソム

Reading

ろさ・りくそむ

Born

January 7, 1958 (age 68)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Dog

Origin

Ylitornio, Lapland, Finland

Occupation

translator / painter / photographer / playwright / writer

Awards & achievements

• 1987 Kalevi Jäntti Award
• 2013 Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland
• 2011 Finlandia Award
• 1985 J. H. Erkko Award
• 1987 Finnish State Prize for Literature
• 2016 Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres
• 2020 Swedish Academy Nordic Prize

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttp://www.rosaliksom.com/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AD%E3%82%B5%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AF%E3%82%BD%E3%83%A0

Tags

• Lapland
• translator
• painter
• photographer

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.