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Editorial

This'n'that
Herbert Lomas on the poetry of Risto Ahti; Kanerva Eskola on the first novel of Reidar Palmgren; Kristina Carlson on text messages and on a new film about the classic writer Aleksis Kivi; the Finnish Literature Information Centre celebrates its 25th anniversary; literary prizes; a change in the editorial board; Nils-Aslak Valkeapää and C.G. Bjurström in memoriam

Risto Ahti
Words of feeling
Poems from Vain tahallaan voi rakastaa ('You can only love deliberately', WSOY, 2001), translated by Herbert Lomas
For Risto Ahti (born 1943), poetry is a serious thing, but never a solemn one. He invites his readers out to play, to solve riddles and smile at caricatures

Tuva Korsström
From Bosnia with love
With his Jewish background and interests in eastern Europe and the Orient, Daniel Katz (born 1938) has never been a parochially Finnish writer. His new novel, Laituri matkalla mereen ('A jetty to the sea', WSOY, 2001), is a love story set against the background of the crises in the former Yugoslavia

Daniel Katz
Blind man's buff
An extract from the novel Laituri matkalla mereen ('A jetty to the sea', WSOY, 2001), translated by Herbert Lomas
An old, blind colonel, his young Bosnian wife Mavra and the young history teacher Henry play out the melancholically humorous triangle drama against the crazy events of recent European history in Daniel Katz's new novel. Is the colonel really blind, must Henry go to war – and whose is Mavra's child?

Reidar Palmgren
Losing it
An extract from the novel Jalat edellä ('Feet first', Otava, 2001), translated by David Hackston
In his first novel, Reidar Palmgren (born 1966) has his thoroughly unsympathetic protagonist confront the world from the bottom of a swimming pool: to be or not to be?

Linus Torvalds & David Diamond
The power of the dweeb
Extracts from Just for fun. The story of an accidental revolutionary (Harper & Collins Publishers, New York, 2001; Schildts, Helsinki, 2001) His grandfather's computer made the 11-year-old Linus Torvalds's day, back in the early 1980s Helsinki when he succeeded in programming it to print the word HELLO forever. Now his open-source computer operating system Linux is world-famous

Juhani Tolvanen
Not in front of the children
The new cartoon strip flourishes, particularly among young artists and readers in France, Switzerland – and Finland. The first of four articles on new Finnish strips introduces Jussi Tuomola's celebrated characters Viivi ja Wagner ('Viivi and Wagner'), woman and pig

Anna Rotkirch
Other Europes
An edited version of the article 'The Emotional Maps of Europe', published in Europe in flames, edited by Jari Ehrnrooth and Niilo Kauppi (Helsinki University Press, 2001)
Can the European Union provide us with 'globalisation with a human face'? As divisions between 'east' and 'west' persist and remain more than strictly geographical, whose Europe is it?

Reviews

Kalle Michelsen
Talking business
Martti Häikiö: Nokia Oyj:n historia 1–3 [A history of Nokia plc 1–3]

Hannu Marttila
Matters of taste
Ulla Aartomaa, Kirsti Grönholm & Marketta Tamminen: Kulttuurihistoriallinen keittokirja [A cookbook of cultural history]; Nousi järvestä hauki. Mutta he söivät sen [A pike rose from the lake. But they ate it], toim. [Ed. by] Marke Naski, Pekka Holma, Matti Savimaa & Jouko Tuomas-Kettunen

Seppo Zetterberg
The sea, the sea
David Kirby & Merja-Liisa Hinkkanen: The Baltic and the North Seas

New translations

Select bibliography

Letter from Athens
The writer Annika Idström looks for a 'wonderful period of solitude' à la Henry Miller in the Greek capital, but finds herself enjoying snow with fellow residents


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