White Hunger
Aki Ollikainen’s prize-winning novel is a bleak tale of hunger that probes broader ethical questions about our responsibility to others.
A New North: Contemporary Writing from Finland
Words Without Borders, the online journal of literature in English translation, has published an issue devoted to contemporary Finnish literature.
Six Finnish Poets
An eclectic sampling of some of the freshest voices in Finnish poetry.
A Sure Star in a Moonless Night
This autumn, Waterloo Press publishes A Sure Star in a Moonless Night, a selection of poems by the Finnish writer Sirkka Turkka, translated by Emily Jeremiah. Turkka’s voice is strange yet sure, unnerving yet compelling: ‘With all due respect, life is as simple as an apple or a stripe in an old shawl and the houses look at this world either with glad or sad eyes’. Of course.
Translation, Pleasure, and Responsibility
‘Translation, Pleasure, and Responsibility’ explores the controversial and ethically complex question of the ‘domestication’ of literary texts in translation. It examines this issue as it concerns texts set in the target culture, using the example of the forthcoming novel Mr Darwin’s Gardener by Kristina Carlson – set in England and recently translated into English by Emily and Fleur Jeremiah – to make a case for readerly pleasure as a desirable aim of translation.
Mr Darwin’s Gardener
A postmodern Victorian novel about faith, knowledge and our inner needs by Kristina Carlson.
Translating The Brothers by Asko Sahlberg
When I first came upon Asko Sahlberg’s novel The Brothers (He, 2009), I was impressed by its taut, poetic style, its savage, …
Moomins, and the meanings of our lives
Tove Jansson’s Moomin books are widely cherished by children and adults alike. They are funny and charming yet haunting and profound. Lovable Moomintroll; practical and sensible Moominmama; spiky Little My; the terrifying yet complex monster, Groke – Jansson’s creations linger in the mind.
The Brothers
Peirene Press, 2012
A Shakespearean drama from icy Finland by Asko Sahlberg
Bright, Dusky, Bright: Translating Eeva-Liisa Manner
The poems of Eeva-Liisa Manner (1921–95) are lucid yet mysterious. They are haunted by echoes, steps, shadows, reflections; but they evoke ghostliness with utter clarity.