Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

A selection of the best novels from this autumn’s harvest, hand-picked by the FILI staff. Here’s what the critics said:

Kristina Carlson: Herra Darwinin puutarhuri [Mr Darwin’s gardener]

Helsinki: Otava, 2009. 176 p.
ISBN 978-951-1-23881-2
31 €, hardback

“Kristina Carlson’s long-awaited second novel is a wonderfully constructed and narrated history of thought and ideology. Carlson’s depictions sparkle with the beauty to be found in the details of a bygone way of life. The events affecting the villagers linger on in our minds. Perhaps not even British writers could imbue this story with as finely tuned a sense of time, place and humanity as Carlson has.” (Mervi Kantokorpi, Helsingin Sanomat)

“The narrator’s voice travels like a baton from one villager to the next, as the world-weary gardener lopes up and down the length of his English village in the late 1870s. […] Mr Darwin’s Gardener is the first book I have read in years to use the flow-of-consciousness style in such a way that speech and inner realities flow directly on to the paper without using external images to explain the situation in hand. Although the transitions from one character to the next are all but seamless, the chosen narrative style is still very natural. Indeed, the novel makes the specific point that nature, human beings included, is a holistic entity consisting of individual units that constantly merge with and influence one another.” (Putte Wilhelmsson, Turun Sanomat)

“Using repetition, sighs, fragments and onomatopoeia, Carlson succeeds in creating the whole village, a microcosm of the infinite smallness of humanity.” (Teppo Kulmala, Keskisuomalainen)

Read interview: Books from Finland | Read introduction: Otava | Sample translation |  Foreign rights: Otava

Monika Fagerholm: Glitterscenen [The Glitter Stage]

Glitterscenen
Helsingfors: Söderströms, 2009. 407 p.
ISBN 978-951-522-467-5
€29.90
Säihkenäyttämö
Finnish translation by Liisa Ryömä
Helsinki: Teos, 2009. 455 p.
ISBN 978-951-851-127-7
€29.90, hardback

“The Glitter Stage is a rich, multifaceted novel, making it a profoundly intense reading experience. It is a very distinctive book, so much so that, after finishing it, it is hard to pick anything else up for a while.” (Salla Seuri, Uusi Suomi)

“Monika Fagerholm rearranges the world in the way that only a true novelist can. Hers is a world of fleeting spaces, glittering stages, underground rooms, forbidden seas. […] The Glitter Stage is a towering read. It stays with you, its lingering light sparkling in the reader’s mind. It seems as though the very act of reading this book brings us closer to the inexplicable core of life itself.” (Eeva Saesmaa, Savon Sanomat)

“Fagerholm’s world is firmly rooted in the realms of realism – meaning a sensuous reality, that which is everyday, perceptible, or the way in which we talk about our own sense of reality – in almost the same manner as opera. […] The Glitter Stage really worked for me, with all its darkness, its linguistic adventurousness, its unanswered moral questions, its fundamental exultation of humour. The novel lit up the days I spent reading it; it triggered my imagination and challenged my thoughts. And everything it required of me, it gave back twofold in a tainted bliss of sorts.” (Pia Ingström, Hufvudstadsbladet)

Read review: Books from Finland | Read introduction: Salomonssons Agency | Foreign rights: Salomonssons Agency

Rights sold: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, France, United States

Kari Hotakainen: Ihmisen osa [The human lot]

Helsinki: Siltala, 2009. 276 p.
ISBN 978-952-23-4021-4
29 €, hardback

“The undoubted pinnacle of Hotakainen’s oeuvre […], a sharp, incisive depiction of the age. Hotakainen, who has a reputation for being something of a funny man, is an angry, clenched moral fist.” (Antti Majander, Helsingin Sanomat)

“Hotakainen is a skilful storyteller, a writer full of inexplicable surprises. His humour is intelligent and takes the reader from laughter to tears and back again. One shouldn’t devour his work, though this novel really has to read in one sitting.” (Ritva Kolehmainen, Savon Sanomat)

“This novel is a stylistically straightforward, dark tale of the delusions of affluence that wash the characters away. […] Aesthetically, The human lot is one of the Hotakainen’s most flawless works. Thoughts and musings on society are constructed piece by piece, chapter after chapter.” (Jari O. Hiltunen, Satakunnan Kansa)

Read review: Books from Finland | Read introduction: WSOY | Bibliography | Foreign rights: WSOY

Rights sold: France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden

Jari Järvelä: Mistä on mustat tytöt tehty? [What are black girls made of?]

Helsinki: Tammi, 2009. 321 p.
ISBN 978-951-31-4897-3
28 €, hardback

“I imagine Jari Järvelä probably had a lot of fun writing his latest novel, and this sense of fun really comes across to the reader. Always delving into details at the first opportunity, this sprawling narrative is full of black (and white) humour. Seen from the rooftops, from the chimney sweep’s perspective up among the chimney stacks, the world looks very different indeed.” (Juha Virkki, Kouvolan Sanomat)

“This saga of chimney sweeps in 1950s Helsinki grows out of small recollections and anecdotes. […] Järvelä’s new novel makes extensive use of fabula, narrative in which a sense of real life is constantly present. This trait is familiar from Järvelä’s previous novels and short stories. Wild associations and a vivid imagination are combined in this highly focussed depiction of time and milieu.” (Juhani Ruotsalo, Demari)

“In addition to presenting the young woman’s life story thus far and examining the realities of life as a chimney sweep, the novel incorporates elements of the murder mystery, which serves to the complete incredible twists and turns of the plot.” (Kaisa Kurikka, Turun Sanomat)

Read introduction: Books from Finland | Sample translation | Foreign rights: Tammi

Katja Kallio, Syntikirja [The book of sins]

Helsinki: Otava, 2009. 302 p.
ISBN 978-951-1-23854-6
28 €, hardback

“Katja Kallio has written her best novel to date. The Book of Sins is beautiful, touching, skilfully constructed and well thought through, perceptive and non-judgmental. […] The Book of Sins tells the story of a miserable circle of lovelessness passing from one generation to the next; love appears only tantalisingly close by. […] In addition to having a deep understanding of all the big questions, Kallio has an ability to write in a way that makes the reader want to pick up a pen and jot down her words of wisdom.” (Liisa Kukkola, Etelä-Saimaa)

“Kallio’s feeling for the text is absolutely unquestionable. Here’s the trick: first sketch a very thin outline, then colour in using flashbacks, searing dialogue and sublime moments of utter despair. And look: what you have is a generational novel of devastating proportions.” (Raisa Mattila, Helsingin Sanomat)

Read introduction: Otava | Foreign rights: Otava

Kjell Westö: Gå inte ensam ut i natten [Don’t go out alone at night]

Gå inte ensam ut i natten
Helsingfors: Söderströms, 2009. 604 p.
ISBN 978-951-52-2609-9
25 €, hardback
Finnish translation (by Katriina Savolainen): Älä käy yöhön yksin
Helsinki: Otava, 2009. 604 p.
ISBN 978-951-1-23833-1
25 €, hardback

“Don’t go out alone at night leaves the reader with a palpable sense of dread: can life slip through our fingers this quickly, this literally? […] The level to which the reader can empathise with the characters and events in this novel is astonishing; the scenes, locations and sounds are all depicted in such vivid colours and from such masterful angles that the sense of reality in this novel is one that film directors are unlikely to want to challenge.” (Hannu Marttila, Helsingin Sanomat)

“Westö hooks his readers both with his historical accuracy and with the worldly nature of events. He recounts generational experiences, full of nostalgia and coloured with pop music, vividly depicted locations and people, and historical events. […] Westö’s expansive, original prose, his passionately sentimental evocations of the city, of music, and his idiosyncratic blend of humour and pathos combine to form a highly convincing novel.” (Salla Seuri, Uusi Suomi)

“Don’t go out alone at night revisits several old themes: power and weakness, rise and fall, the place of the individual in time and society. One of Westö’s talents is his incredible ability to balance wider societal upheaval with the development of individual characters, and to make the two sides of the coin influence and contrast with one another. The sense of loss when a society grows apart from its history is the same as that experienced by children leaving their childhood behind them. The question in all of Westö’s novels is: should we harden ourselves or simply learn to live with our vulnerability? (Anna-Lina Brunell, Hufvudstadsbladet)

Read review: Books from Finland | Read introduction: Bonnier | Bibliography | Foreign rights: Bonnier Group Agency

Rights sold: Germany, Norway

Tuomas Kyrö: 700 grammaa [700 grams]

Helsinki: WSOY, 2009. 379 p.
ISBN 978-951-0-35601-2
29,90 €, hardback

“Tuomas Kyrö seems to improve with every new novel. In terms of its subject and its linguistic competence, his latest novel 700 grams is such a staggering achievement that one can do nothing but applaud it. […] Inventive, incisive asides abound at almost every corner. 700 grams is a perceptive examination of every aspect of life in modern Finland, a life in which ‘human movement is determined by the movement of money’ and vice versa.” (Raija Hakala, Pohjolan Sanomat)

“Kyrö, who has improved with every successive novel, has filled every sentence with references to culture, music and recent history. The language in this novel is so rich and intense that it seems to achieve the impossible, like asking a hammer thrower to run flat out for 1500 metres.” (Seppo Puttonen and Nadja Nowak, YLE [The  Broadcasting Company])

“The novel’s depictions of Ilmari’s training and of his experiments with various banned substances, which results in his victory at the European Championships in Albania, are the stuff of classic picaresque literature spiced with elements of Jackass humour. The training episodes featuring the man looking after his stout playschool-aged son read like a grotesque variation on the theme of the knight of the sorrowful countenance.” (Mervi Kantokorpi, Helsingin Sanomat)

Read review: Books from Finland | Read introduction: WSOY | Foreign rights: WSOY

Translated by David Hackston

Tags: novel