Translations and Features
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from The Red Room by Kaj Korkea-aho
Kaj Korkea-aho’s fifth novel Röda rummet is a charged, sensitively hewn text that explores power dynamics and desire, and the extent to which we are prepared to go to realise our own, and others’, fantasies.
Translated by Bradley Harmon.
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from The Velvet Dictatorship by Anna-Lena Laurén
Esteemed journalist Anna-Lena Laurén explores democracy in Russia in this extract taken from Sammetsdiktaturen, her latest collection of essays on Russian contemporary society.
Translated by D.E. Hurford.
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Night Express by Karin Erlandsson, illustrated by Peter Bergting
All aboard a magical express train, in a story that combines Christmas cosiness with a thoughtful exploration of how to talk about people who are no longer themselves.
Translated by Annie Prime.
TRANSLATED STORY
The Sauna Throne by Axel Åhman
At a public swimming pool somewhere in Finland, a young man decides to take a sauna. The ensuing sweaty power struggle is a hilarious, finely tuned exploration of masculinity, linguistic identity and the corrupting nature of power.
Translated by D.E. Hurford.
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Mamma by Adrian Perera
Adrian Perera's Mamma is a genre-bending, multi-lingual, claustrophobic glimpse into the world of its protagonist, a young boy called Tony.
Translated by Kate Lambert.
TRANSLATED EXTRACT
from Island of Souls by Johanna Holmström
This ambitious historical novel spanning more than a century tells a tragic story based in reality.
Translated by Fiona Graham.
Translated extract
from To Storm Skerry by Anni Blomqvist
Anni Blomqvist's series of five novels set in the Åland archipelago in the 19th century draws on events in her own family history to depict the harsh reality of life on a small, remote island.
Translated by Kate Lambert.
FEATURE
The Tove Jansson Centennial Conference
Silvester Mazzarella reports on Tove Jansson Centennial Conference held at the University of Stockholm, 27-28 November 2014.
Reviews
REVIEW
En annan Edith
Best known for her poetry, Edith Södergran (1892 – 1923) also left a substantial body of photography. In Another Edith, award-winning book designer Nina Ulmaja analyses some of these photos and links them to Södergran’s biography – and her own.
REVIEW
Lyser och lågar
Ulla-Lena Lundberg and Negar Naseh: two women writers from different generations and cultural backgrounds, with voices as distinctive as the settings of their narratives. Their novels Light and Flame and A Handful of Wind offer spell-binding insights into the landscapes of their minds.
REVIEW
Arvejord
A farm in western Finland is passed down through four hundred years of the same family. Inherited Land explores family bonds and traditions, as well as individual personalities and experiences, of generations of the extended Nevabacka family.
REVIEW
Om du möter en björn
You Are Not My Mother and If You Meet a Bear, two new picture books illustrated by Linda Bondestam, have very different narratives and styles, but both reveal an artist at the height of her powers.
REVIEW
Handbok i klardrömmar
Lucid Dreams: A User’s Manual is a collection of stories spanning suburbia, science fiction, loneliness, violence and sheer horror from Johanna Holmström, a past master of uncomfortable writing.
REVIEW
Vi ska ju bara cykla förbi
Manda and her best friend Malin are inseparable. In We'll just ride past, it's them against their small-town world... or not so much ‘against’ but outside it, cycling round the periphery of anything thrilling, as the end of the school year looms and with it the end of their compulsory education.
REVIEW
Skugga och svalka
An unconventionally told story of childhood in which photography and aesthetics play a major part, Shade and Breeze is an elusive but absorbing debut novel.
REVIEW
Homo Line
Travelling between Dimension Homesickness and Dimension Viking Line, Edith Hammar's Homo Line is a graphic novel about dislocation, gentrification, and a lesser-known aspect of wartime Helsinki.
REVIEW
Borde hålla käft – en bok om Märta Tikkanen
As well as being an impeccably researched biography of Märta Tikkanen, a writer who became a Nordic feminist icon, Johanna Holmström’s Ought to shut up – a book about Märta Tikkanen is a dialogue between its author’s 21st-century #metoo feminism and its subject’s feminism of the 1970s and 1980s.
REVIEW
För han var redan dö
För han var redan dö continues Eva Frantz's skillful series of stand-alone crime novels blending police procedurals with elements of noir, set against a backdrop of the rugged Finnish coast.
REVIEW
Samlade dikter 1955-2015
The work of Gösta Ågren holds a special place in Finland-Swedish – and Swedish and Finnish – literature. This collection brings together many of his works from the past 60 years.
REVIEW
White Monkey
In this poetry collection Adrian Perera addresses structural racism and hegemonic whiteness, combining the power of poetry with the realism of a narrative.
REVIEW
Breven från Maresi
With Maresi Red Mantle Maria Turtschaninoff confirms her status as an internationally renowned author of fantasy.
REVIEW
Pärlfiskaren
The first in a new fantasy quartet by award-winning Finland-Swedish author Karin Erlandsson.
REVIEW
Vildsvin
Hannah Lutz's Wild Boar questions ‘[...] which species, which animals and which people are welcome where? And who decides that?’
REVIEW
Rassel Prassel Promenad
Rattle Rustle Walk is a lovely collection of poetry that is just right for young readers and they, like the tree in winter with its leaves falling, will be sad when it is over.
REVIEW
Laudatur
Peter Sandström's Autumn Apples is a masterpiece of understatement, a brilliantly laconic portrait of the sad vicissitudes of life.
REVIEW
Den svavelgula himlen
Although The Sulphur-Yellow Sky begins with a crime, it is not about uncovering a mystery. More than that, it asks how complicit are those who watch, who are involved but not involved, who see but do nothing.
REVIEW
Korta Stycken
Korta Stycken, a slim volume of short stories, flash fiction and poetry, is a masterclass in style by Johan Bargum, one of Finland’s most renowned contemporary writers.
REVIEW
In Transit
Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo's works span drama and prose, but always with a poetic touch, and In Transit is no exception.
REVIEW
Jag, Fidel och Skogen
Lena Frölander-Ulf's enchanting winter read is a thought-provoking exploration of confronting fears and preconceptions through encounters with whimsical forest folk and a homely troll.
REVIEW
Naondel: Krönikor från röda klostret
An independent prequel to the well-received Maresi, Maria Turtschaninoff's Naondel tells the story of the First Sisters – founders of the Red Abbey.
REVIEW
WOW. Ansikter om finländsk arkitektur
Andersson's book is a call to arms against the sterile, anonymous, uniform and ubiquitous ‘grey boxes’ of Finnish modernism.