Beasts of the Sea: the tragic story of how the ‘gentle, lovable’ sea cow became the perfect victim

An artist’s impression of Steller's sea cows. The huge, placid herbivores were not known to science before 1741 but within 27 years they had already been hunted to extinction by fur traders – the first marine mammal known to be eradicated by humans. Illustration: Universal Images/Alamy

Iida Turpeinen is the author of Beasts of the Sea, a Finnish novel tracing the fate of a now-extinct species: the sea cow. Similar to dugongs and manatees, the sea cow was only discovered in 1741 by the shipwrecked German-born naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller but by 1768 it had already become the first marine species to be eradicated by humans.

Translated into 28 languages and shortlisted for the country’s most prestigious literary award, the Finlandia Prize, Beasts of the Sea was described by the Helsinki Literacy Agency as the most internationally successful Finnish debut novel ever. Turpeinen, 38, a PhD student of comparative literature, is now a resident novelist at Finland’s Natural History Museum. Her book will be published in the UK on 23 October.