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Editorial: Letters, postcards

This'n'that
Absolutely untranslatable; Herbert Lomas on new poems by Mirkka Rekola; Maria Antas on a first novel by Sabine Forsblom; Soila Lehtonen on Leena Krohn's new dystopic novel; Jarmo Papinniemi on Arto Salminen's novel about pigs and men; Soila Lehtonen on Petri Tamminen's 'memoirs'; Kristina Carlson on a travelogue by Kyllikki Villa; translation prize; renewed web pages: www.finlit.fi/booksfromfinland

Mirkka Rekola
The best thing
Poems from Valekuun reitti ('The path of the false moon', WSOY, 2004), translated by Herbert Lomas
Mirkka Rekola (born 1931) has written poems for half a century. Her new collection moves freely back and forth in time; in her pensive poems she re-encounters people long gone, weighing up the fragility of life, and allowing time and its mysteries to keep their secrets

Sabine Forsblom
Daddy's girl
Extracts from the novel Maskrosguden ('The dandelion god', Söderströms, 2004), translated by Silvester Mazzarella
The narrator in this Swedish-language first novel by Sabine Forsblom (born 1961) is a young girl growing in the picturesque little town of Borgå
(Porvoo in Finnish), 50 kilometres east of Helsinki, in a working-class family, telling hilarious and touching tales about the people around her. In the 1960s man reaches the moon, and in Borgå dreams come true - or don't

Leena Krohn
To sleep, to die
Extracts from the novel Unelmakuolema ('Dreamdeath', Teos, 2004), translated by Hildi Hawkins
A gourmet death is perhaps the future way to shuffle off this mortal coil. Leena Krohn (born 1947), philosopher of artificial intelligence and selfhood, takes a profound look at death and dying in her satirical new novel. Her brave new world of the near future shines an unexpected beam on the eternal human desire: immortality

Arto Salminen
The business of war
Extracts from the novel Lahti ('Lahti'; here, either meaning 'The city of Lahti' or 'Slaughter', WSOY, 2004), translated by David Hackston
How can you practice for war? What does it feel like to shoot a living target? How do you carry a wounded body to safety? In this fifth novel by Arto Salminen (born 1959), young soldiers are made to aim at sedated pigs. The flesh is real - and for some, there may lie a moral dilemma here

Petri Tamminen
Scenes from a life
Extracts from the novel Muistelmat ('Memoirs', Otava, 2004), translated by Anselm Hollo
The writer Petri Tamminen (born 1966) likes to condense what he has to say. He has published fictional biographies of around 200 words each, and now his 30-something male protagonist squeezes his life into a slim volume of 78 pages - entitled 'Memoirs'

Kyllikki Villa
Travels with myself
Extracts from the travelogue Vanhan rouvan lokikirja ('An old lady's logbook', Like, 2004), translated by Jill G. Timbers
At the age of 74, the translator and poet Kyllikki Villa (born 1924) decided to ply her trade at sea once more; the multilingual sailor has worked on freighters for 35 years. But with age, her thoughts are filled with fears: does she dare go ashore, can she communicate in foreign languages, is she threatened by illness? This unusual travelogue gives an honest picture of a long voyage - into both the world and the writer's soul

Juhani Lindholm
On a desert island
How to start when a seriously big classic novel needs to be translated anew? Juhani Lindholm (born 1951) stares at the sea and imagines being shipwrecked as he tackles the 700 pages of Robinson Crusoe.
This is the third article in a series in which literary translators from English into Finnish write about their work

Reviews

Ismo Tuormaa
Back to the woods
Metsään mieleni [Into the forest], edited by Yrjö Sepänmaa, Liisa Heikkilä-Palo and Virpi Kaukio; Mauri Leivo: Nuuksio, miljoonan ihmisen erämaa [Nuuksio, the wilderness of a million people]

Outi Lehtipuro
Building a language
Irma Sulkunen: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura 1831-1892 [The Finnish Literature Society 1831-1892]

New translations

Book business: statistics 2003

Select bibliography

Letter from a car-maintenance class
For the dramaturge and author Riikka Ala-Harja (born 1967), becoming a car-carer is a many-splendoured thing.... Her latest novel is Maata meren alla ('Land beneath the sea', Gummerus, 2003).
This is the third letter of a series written by Finnish authors this year