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Editorial

Contents

This 'n' that
Local heroes: Jukka Petäjä on Sari Mikkonen; The next nine lives: Herbert Lomas on Ilpo Tiihonen; literary prizes; David Barrett in memoriam

Sari Mikkonen
Incident at Experience Farm
A short story from Pakkasyön odottaja ('Waiting for a frosty night', WSOY, 1997), translated by Hildi Hawkins
The darkly comic power struggle between a bossy, repressed mother and her grown-up daughter living in the remote forests of eastern Finland culminates in sudden and violent death

Ilpo Tiihonen
Troubled by joy?
Poems from Boxtrot (WSOY, 1998), translated by Herbert Lomas
Ilpo Tiihonen (born 1950) has always played with language – to the extent that its exuberant rhymes and puns can make it almost impossible to translate

Monika Fagerholm
Pig-sweet
An extract from the novel Diva (Söderströms, 1998),
translated by Joan Tate
For Monika Fagerholm (born 1961), writing has no object but writing itself. Her new novel is about Diva, aged thirteen – no longer a child, not yet a woman – and her project is to invent a new language for her that expresses her existence as both a woman and a human being.
Interview by Silja Hiidenheimo

Dog days
Photographs by Pentti Sammallahti, words by John Berger
From The Russian way (Opus 31, 1996)
When people first encounter Pentti Sammallahti's photographs, writes John Berger, they gasp, look closer, and smile. They are remembering something – something they knew as children, but which they have forgotten how to see

Markku Envall
Confessions of a bibliomane
An essay from Asumaton huone ('An uninhabited room',
WSOY, 1997)
You do not have to read books to own them. Markku Envall reports on the symptoms of book-madness

Mikko Heikka
Apostles on the field
From 11&pallo. Jalkapallo elämässä, elämä jalkapallossa ('11 and the ball. Football in life, life in football', edited by Jukka Pakkanen and Esko S. Lahtinen, Kirjayhtymä, 1997)
The apostles, whose statues adorn Helsinki cathedral, would make a great football team, claims the cathedral dean Mikko Heikka – all but Judas, whose own-goal disqualifies him

Reviews

Jukka Tarkka
Liquid assets
Kylmä sota – kuuma öljy. Neste, Suomi ja kaksi Eurooppaa 1948-1978 [Cold war – hot oil. Neste, Finland and the two Europes 1948-1978] by Markku Kuisma

Seppo Knuuttila
Poetic pasts
Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot XV. Runoja Henrik Florinuksen, Kristfrid Gananderin, Elias Lönnrotin ja Volmari Porkan kokoelmista [The ancient poems of the Finnish people. Poems from the collections of Henrik Florinus, Kristfrid Ganander, Elias Lönnrot and Volmari Porkka]. Toim. [Ed. by] Matti Kuusi and Senni Timonen

Hannu Marttila
Fishy stories
Havis Amanda: mermaid's delicacies by Harri Nevalainen and Laura Kolbe

Ilkka Jauhiainen
Marriage à la mode
New players: this summer saw the merger of Sanoma news-paper group and Finland's biggest publishing house, WSOY, and the resultant growth of another important publishing house, Otava

Statistics

Veikko Sonninen
The sword and the pen
Amid the economic crises of the 1990s, what is the role of government support of the publication of quality literature?