2013 Special Issue
Cool Swedish Titles from Finland
Editor: Sarah Death
(Image: Detail from the cover of Monika Fagerholm's Lola uppochner. Design: Maria Appelberg. Photo: Helen Korpak)
Introduction
FEATURE
The Finland-Swedish Literary Landscape Today
An introduction to cool Swedish titles from Finland.
by Tiia Strandén
Translations
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from The Grass is Darker on the Other Side by Kaj Korkea-aho
An enthralling and psychologically convincing portrayal of a group of young people trying to find their place in life.
Translated by Kevin Halliwell
TRANSLATED POETRY
from One Evening in October I Rowed Out on the Lake by Tua Forsström
Meditations on the texture of human experience. A selection from one of Tua Forsström's collections of poems.
Translated by David MacDuff
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Lola Upside-Down by Monika Fagerholm
A classic thriller set against the backdrop of the sluggish and suspicious dynamic of small-town life.
Translated by Anna Holmwood
TRANSLATED POETRY
from Chambers of the Heart by Claes Andersson
Three poems from this volume of selected poems, 1962-2012, demonstrating the poet's unique style of expression.
Translated by Benjamin Mier-Cruz
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Mirage 38 by Kjell Westö
The title refers to the unrealistic notion of business as usual in 1938, as the world heads inexorably towards crisis and conflict.
Translated by Sarah Death
TRANSLATED POETRY
from She-Mares (a manner for you) by Matilda Södergran
In this collection, the poet uses experimental language to continue her exploration of the female body as myth and metaphor.
Translated by Anna Tebelius
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Underfors by Maria Turtschaninoff
'A highly original fantasy novel for young people ... teeming with goblins, sprites, kelpies, pixies and sorceresses.'
Translated by Agnes Broomé
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Asphalt Angels by Johanna Holmström
This novel navigates the complexities of being young, female and Muslim in Finland
Translated by Nichola Smalley
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Starved by Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo
Helsinki's last vampire slips like a cat across the rooftops of Finland's capital, with only one wish: to die.
Translated by Sarah Death
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Ice by Ulla-Lena Lundberg
A Nordic bestseller, set in a Lutheran island community in the 1940s.
Translated by Thomas Teal
Articles
FEATURE
Beyond Moomin Valley
There is more to Tove Jansson than the Moomins. Claire Dickenson looks at the short stories and novels she wrote for adults.
FEATURE
Unicorns and Witches
Charlotte Berry investigates the world of author and illustrator Irmelin Sandman Lilius.
Reviews
Edited and complied by Anna Paterson
Poetry
REVIEW
En kväll i oktober rodde jag ut på sjön
Each of the 32 poems in this little volume could have an explication devoted to it.
Fiction
REVIEW
Hägring 38
Written in elegantly simple prose, with just the right degree of 1930s formality in the dialogue, the novel successfully fuses history-as-it-happens with the stories of the individuals leading their lives at this particular juncture.
REVIEW
Is
An atmospheric novel set on the fictional island of Ör, off Ulla-Lena Lundberg’s native Åland Islands, finds this seasoned and much-lauded writer on top form.
REVIEW
Samlaren
A disquieting feeling sets in ... Anything that is mentioned only casually ends up making you scared.
REVIEW
Gräset är mörkare på andra sidan
As in the best fantasy novels, the possibility of unknowable forces on the very fringe of our perceivable reality lends depth and tension to Korkea-aho’s novel.
REVIEW
Till dig som saknas
This collection of short stories, awarded the Yle literary prize, comprises a series of portraits set in the 1950s–80s, and many of the characters are Finnish parents still suffering from the after-effects of the wars with Russia, or the next generation reared by such parents.
REVIEW
Asfaltsänglar
This novel explores growing up and growing out of childhood certainties, but also the roads to growing into woman amidst the lying and the beauty.
REVIEW
Seglats i september
The jacket blurb of this spare but unsettling novella pointedly asks: what happened?
REVIEW
Jag har letat efter dig
Love and multiculturalism in Finland in the early twenty-first century.
Fiction for young adults
REVIEW
Anaché. Myter från Akkade
One of the Nordic region’s most interesting writers of youth fiction.
Non-fiction
REVIEW
Mammuten eller Jörn Donners efterlämnade handlingar. Om illamåendets historia i Finland. Första delen
Exceptionally intelligent as well as an intellectual, Donner displays sheer brainpower, which imposes shape, style and interest on the extraordinary miscellanea of his life.