The Way of the Four Winds, by Yrjo Kokko. 8vo., 285 pages with index and 148 photo-illustrations by the author. Translated by Naomi Walford. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1954. Price, $5.00.

This is a book about Finnish Lapland, a composite life-story of Lapps through the cycle of a year. Many people fill out the background, but there are some in particular whose stories do much to give the book its epic character. First there is Jouni, a true son of the land where the four winds meet, who leaves his destroyed village for the army, but returns from this contact with the outside world to take up his old life. Second is Ahku, the wise old grandmother to whom all in the village turn for advice. And finally Falli, the young shepherd, a wealthy man by virtue of his reindeer herd. The nature of the people and their land is the theme, their history and superstitions, with the threat that civilization is bringing to the old way of life as the people of the south encroach.

The author was born in Karelia, now a part of Russia, and studied to be a veterinary in Vienna. He now lives in Finland, where this book has received the Grand Literary Prize.

J. M. T.