Pirkko Arhippa leaves €800,000 to Finnish Writers’ Union

Crime novelist Pirkko Arhippa has left an estate worth €800,000 to the Finnish Writers’ Union, Yle reports. The donation is among the largest in the union’s history and its biggest in decades.

The union will establish a fund named after Arhippa. In accordance with her wishes, its returns will be distributed as grants and prizes to support female crime writers at the beginning of their careers.

The bequest also includes an apartment in Naantali, which the union will sell.

Ilmi Villacís, the union’s executive director, said bequests of this size were very rare. The union last received similarly large donations in the 1950s and 1960s, she said.

Arhippa, who was born in Rautavaara in 1935, died aged 90 last October. She is regarded as one of the pioneers of Finnish crime fiction. Her debut crime novel, Murder Is a Matter of the Heart, was published in 1968.

In addition to crime novels, Arhippa published romantic fiction under different pen names. Her final novel, Rose, Ball, Key, was published in 2016.

Arhippa was a member of the Finnish Writers’ Union. “Her name will remain in history through the fund that bears her name,” Villacís said.

In 2005, the Finnish Crime Writers’ Association awarded Arhippa the Hornanlinna honorary certificate for her long-standing contribution to Finnish crime fiction.

Arhippa also served in Naantali municipal politics as a member of the Social Democratic Party.

Villacís encouraged others to consider making bequests as government funding declines. She said donations and funds had become increasingly important to writers.