Reviews

Each of the 32 poems in this little volume could have an explication devoted to it.

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.

Love and multiculturalism in Finland in the early twenty-first century.

A disquieting feeling sets in ... Anything that is mentioned only casually ends up making you scared.

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.

Exceptionally intelligent as well as an intellectual, Donner displays sheer brainpower, which imposes shape, style and interest on the extraordinary miscellanea of his life.

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.

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.

One of the Nordic region’s most interesting writers of youth fiction.

The book is very much a meta-novel. Its nine chapters consist of nine parables, corresponding perhaps to the nine leaves torn from the centre of his long-dead father’s poetry notebook. The notebook had recently come into the author’s hands, even though he had long believed that his strongly religious mother had burnt the notebook. To her way of thinking, poetry was sinful. Parables, however, were acceptable.

The influence of English crime fiction on Maria Lang’s novels is obvious: the closed circle of suspects, suspense, and the solution reached through use of the little grey cells with pipe-smoking as inducement to concentration.

He has an eye for the little absurdities of life: Helen invites her new work colleague to dinner hoping to pair him up with her friend, but her intentions are thwarted by her own husband getting too enchanted with the guy.

Illustrated in rich swathes of violets, purples and blues, this picture book aims to help young children come to terms with fear of shadows and the dark.

Drawing on the latest research, this volume is a welcome addition to the comparative histories on Scandinavia and the Second World War.

A story of forbidden love and ostracism.

A perfect combination for those wanting to get a grip on their own issues with ‘the system’.

You imagine that, within her, Violencia hosts a continuous never-ending party.

Both prosecutors end up turning to crime to reach their goals.