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.
The Blood of Angels
A man searches for the meaning of mass honeybee disappearances, and loss in his own life, in this moving story of tragedy and transcendence by Johanna Sinisalo.
Compartment No. 6
A quiet young Finnish student is forced to share her train compartment with a drunken, tale-telling, self-proclaimed murderer as they cross the crumbling Soviet Union from Moscow to Ulan Bator in Rosa Liksom’s Finlandia Prize-winning novel.
The Rabbit Back Literature Society
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen’s brilliant, indescribable first novel is a darkly funny tale about a tiny town haunted by aspiring writers and otherwordly presences.
The Limit
The grief of love lost to dementia and the treacherous first steps into sexual and psychological adulthood are told with scrupulous emotional honesty in Riikka Pulkkinen’s prize-winning first novel.
Mr Darwin’s Gardener
A postmodern Victorian novel about faith, knowledge and our inner needs by Kristina Carlson.
The Human Part
For what would you sell your life story? And would you sell the truth? Biting social satire from Finlandia winner Kari Hotakainen.
Birdbrain
Birdbrain takes readers on the hiking trip of a lifetime along the Tasmanian coastline. But in this heart of darkness, some things are not what they seem.
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, …
The Brothers
Peirene Press, 2012
A Shakespearean drama from icy Finland by Asko Sahlberg