As a child, Henrik devoured stories of faraway lands. Through them, he discovered that the pathway to understanding people from different cultures was to look for things they had in common rather than what set them apart. Finding connection to people became his passion. In his early teens, he left his safe little bubble in Helsinki and ventured out to the great big world, eventually landing in Paris.

At the age of twenty one, Henrik returned to Finland and enrolled in the Helsinki Business School. Two years later he founded a contemporary art sale and services company, but despite the initial success he had to close down the business after five years when the whole western world fell into a deep recession.

Henrik decided to go back to school to study philosophy. One morning as he was working on an essay on rhetoric, it dawned on him that he was actually writing his first book. It was a philosophical study into his own coming-of-age. End of Restlessness was published by a Finnish publisher (WSOY) and after publishing another book, this time a young adult novel, he switched to English.

The Rise Up Trilogy was inspired by his fifteen-year stint as a volunteer in Helsinki Red Cross Youth Shelter. In a world that is turning into an increasingly hostile place for any minority, what people need is stories that evoke diversity, friendship, human decency, and the courage to listen to one’s heart.

Besides his husband, Henrik loves novels in Russian about the Soviet life, French pop, snowboarding, sampling vegan delights across the world, and spending time with their brazen, eclectic group of friends and family.