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The export of literature, it could be argued, is not Finland's strong suit. Music – think of Jean Sibelius, of course, or today's composers, Magnus Lindberg or Kaija Saariaho, for example, or performers, Karita Mattila or Esa-Pekka Salonen; architecture – Alvar Aalto, or Juhani Pallasmaa or Kristian Gullichsen; design; communications technology.... in all these areas, Finland has made world-class contributions. In literature, the situation is different. Unlike the other Nordic countries, Finland has no Ibsen, Strindberg, Kierkegaard nor even a Hamsun or a Blixen, to its name. The beginning of internationally recognised Finnish literature came in 1835 with the Kalevala, an epic fashioned out of the poems collected from singers in the far north and east of rural Finland. Sanctioned by Goethe's idea of world literature – a literature that would be the property not of individual nations, but of humanity – the Kalevala was rapidly translated, making its first appearance in French, for example, just six years after its publication in Finnish. The first Finnish novel of importance, Aleksis Kivi's Seitsemän veljestä (Seven Brothers), followed in 1870. It was succeeded by the realist school headed by Juhani Aho, the socially critical dramas of Minna Canth and the symbolist romanticism of the poetry of Eino Leino; but these proved to be of strictly local interest. Even the country's one Nobel literature laureate, Frans Emil Sillanpää, who received the prize on the eve of the Soviet attack on Finland of 1939, is not exactly an international name. There is the exception of Mika Waltari, whose historical novels – most famously Sinuhe egyptiläinen (Sinuhe the Egyptian) – were widely translated in the 1940s and 1950s, and have recently gained new readerships in many European countries; but in general it was not until the literary modernism that followed the Second World War that Finnish literature began to make headway internationally. The prime mover was the poet and playwright Paavo Haavikko, first translated into English, French and German in the 1970s (in 1984 he received the prestigious Neustadt Prize); Pentti Saarikoski – younger, wilder and decidedly more bacchanalian – found a smaller niche in the hall of fame in the excellent translations of Anselm Hollo, while the delicate and subtle work of Eeva-Liisa Manner, awaits a broader presentation, at least in the English language. What else? Individual Finnish poets have dedicated followings in English: the charged modernism of Edith Södergran, Tua Forsström's highly personal lyricism, Bo Carpelan's warmly evocative memoirs of his Helsinki past, Gösta Ågren's lapidary miniatures. David McDuff's translation of Carpelan's novel Axel went into two paperback editions; Herbert Lomas's extensive anthologies of contemporary prose and poetry have introduced Finnish writers to many new audiences; Hildi Hawkins's translations of Leena Krohn's 'sort-of novels' attract perhaps more readers through the internet (www.kaapeli.fi/~krohn) than through their printed versions. Monika Fagerholm's novel Wonderful Women by the Sea, a story of consumer heaven and holiday hell in the Finnish archipelago in the 1960s, was translated into seven different languages, including an English edition by the late Joan Tate. Arto Paasilinna's comic novels have won readers in more than 20 countries. Oh, and let's not forget Tove Jansson's Moomins, with translations into more than 30 languages. Language may make literature less immediately exportable than the non-verbal arts; but writing is also the best interpreter of its culture. To provide good translations of Finnish writing is, at Books from Finland, only one of our aims, and the search for great literature only one of our interests. As well as extracts from fiction, you will also find, in the pages of Books from Finland, essays, journalism, photographs, art, cartoons, jokes, argument – every element of the vibrant culture of Finland that we can possibly fit between two covers. Welcome to Books from Finland! Soila Lehtonen & Hildi Hawkins Editors-in-chief, 2001 Top of page |