Document digitisationCompleted

Grandfather’s book.

A manuscript waited 50 years. Now it has a voice.

A manuscript that waited 50 years

My grandfather, a disabled war veteran, spent his childhood and youth in Manssila by Lake Ladoga, a border region lost in the war. He experienced the Winter War, the deaths of fellow soldiers and evacuation, then built a new life in Finland. He wrote the original account between 1955 and 1977. A revised 228-page typewritten version was completed in 1977 for future generations, but publication funding was not found. The manuscript waited for almost 50 years.

The AI era unlocked it

In 2026 I took up the challenge again with AI. All 228 typewritten pages were scanned while the originals remained untouched as permanent source material. AI performed text recognition, and difficult passages were cross-checked with a second model.

Editing without polishing away the voice

The raw text was made readable, with automated word-count checks ensuring that no factual content disappeared. After an early AI pass removed too much, missing names, dates and events were restored. The rough language of wartime was retained for its documentary value, as were my grandfather’s first-person voice and way of speaking.

From text to audiobook

We built an AI-assisted application that converts the edited text into speech chapter by chapter and produces MP3 files. The memories are now listenable for the first time. AI also produced an easy-to-read version and illustrations based on events, one of which is shown here.

Now: towards publication

Digitisation is complete and a text-to-speech audiobook has been made for the family. My grandfather’s dream was to have his story published. Now that the manuscript is digital, we have approached publishers again about this cultural and historical account.

The same core in business

Long-established companies often have similar raw material in their archives: old manuals, maintenance records and training material that has never been turned into usable knowledge. The same technical core can preserve a family history or make an organisation’s tacit knowledge accessible.

My role

I designed and implemented the entire pipeline from scanning and text recognition to content-preserving editing, speech conversion and final products. AI also generated an illustration from the Winter War account. The work was completed with Claude and Codex.

Listen to audiobook samples

The memoir contains remarkable survival stories from the Winter War. The preface explains the background, followed by an anonymised extract from chapter 17. The audio is in Finnish.