Search results for "Riikka Pulkkinen"
Riikka Pulkkinen: Totta [True]
22 October 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Totta
[True]
Helsinki: Otava, 2010. 333 p.
ISBN 978-951-1-22965-0
€ 31,40, hardback
The second novel by Riikka Pulkkinen (born 1980) is a comprehensive work that tackles big themes: love, death and rejection. Pulkkinen’s particular strengths as an author are her richly nuanced language and her mastery of structure. While the ending provides food for thought, the book is an enjoyable novel about childhood, growing up, daring to love and live. Martti, a seventy-year-old artist, is caring for his sick wife, a highly respected psychologist. Martti and Elsa have had a long and happy marriage. Then it emerges that Martti had a long affair with their live-in childminder Eeva, whose story grows into one of the main plot strands of the book. Their love story takes place against the background of the 1960s, when the waves passing through European society reached Finland as well. Pulkkinen skilfully brings the perspective of the now grown-up daughter Eleonoora into the mix, as she views her early childhood under the care of two mother figures. At the 2010 Frankfurt Book Fair translation rights to Totta were sold to six countries, which at least goes to show that there is interesting literature to be found in the Nordic countries beyond the ubiquitous crime novels.
On Matti Pulkkinen
30 June 1978 | Archives online, Authors
Matti Pulkkinen. Photo: Gummerus
Matti Pulkkinen’s grandfather was born in 1842 in a forest village close to the Russian border, in an area which could only be reached by water. When he grew up he became a tar-burner, a traditional occupation in north-east Finland. Pulkkinen’s father worked for the Otava Publishing Company in the early years of the present century, a time when ordinary Finns were beginning to show a real interest in literature. In his home in one of the most remote parts of North Karelia, he assembled a library which ranged from Mark Twain to the detective stories of G. K. Chesterton. He was 70 when his youngest son, Matti, was born in 1944. Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche were the two writers whose works did most to stimulate Matti Pulkkinen’s enthusiasm for literature. After leaving school he set out to see the world. He worked as a lumberjack, a primary school teacher, a statistics clerk in a gynaecological hospital, a bank teller, an accounts clerk, and later as a carpenter, took part in the restoration of the medieval church at Vanaja. From 1969 to 1971 Pulkkinen worked as a nurse in mental hospitals in Frankfurt, West Berlin and Bern. While in Switzerland he became interested in Jungian psychology and modern group therapy.
Pulkkinen’s novel, Ja pesäpuu itki (‘And the nesting-tree wept’, Gummerus), published in 1977, was awarded the J.H. Erkko Prize for the best first novel of the year and the Kalevi Jäntti Memorial Prize. It rapidly became a best seller and has already had two reprints. More…
And the winner is…?
27 March 2012 | This 'n' that
Playing your cards right: Todd Zuniga talks to Riikka Pulkkinen on 20 March in Helsinki. Photo: courtesy/T. Zuniga
The writer Johanna Sinisalo’s words lash the stage like the tail of Pessi the troll in her best-known novel. The novelist Riikka Pulkkinen bursts into deconstructive dance. The singer Anni Mattila translates the poet Teemu Manninen’s explosive poetic frolics into rhythmic dictations and the Finlandia Prize-winning author Rosa Liksom’s conductor’s glittering moustaches see the audience off on a train journey to Moscow.
On a March evening, a Literary Death Match has begun in the Korjaamo Culture Factory in Helsinki’s old tramsheds. The creation of the American author and journalist Todd Zuniga, the Literary Death Match combines an evening of readings with stand-up comedy as well as the judging familiar from reality TV shows.
‘It all started with me eating sushi with two of my friends and talking about some of the readings we’d been to. We all loved literature and loved to listen to writers reading from their own work. But the audience was always the same circle of people. We wanted to expand it beyond literary circles,’ Zuniga explains. More…
Jonna Pulkkinen: Kieltolaki. Kielletyn viinan historia Suomessa. [Prohibition. A history of prohibited liquor in Finland.]
29 June 2015 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Jonna Pulkkinen
Kieltolaki. Kielletyn viinan historia Suomessa. [Prohibition. A history of prohibited liquor in Finland.]
Helsinki: Minerva, 2015. 213pp., ill.
ISBN 978-952-312-112-6
€32,90, hardback
Prohibition of the making and selling of strong liquor was in force in Finland between 1919 and 1932. In this approachable book, the journalist and non-fiction writer Jonna Pulkkinen charts Finnish attitudes to alcohol over the ages and describes the origin and effects of prohibition. Total abstinence was popular in Finland in the second half of the 19th century, and was adopted in particular by the working class. Limits on alcoholic consumption were first imposed as early as the First World War. When a prohibition law that had been passed a couple of years earlier came into effect in newly independent Finland in 1919, however, support had already begun to dwindle. Home stills proliferated, smuggling from abroad was considerable and broadly accepted, and enforcing the law was difficult. Pulkkinen has numerous interesting and even comical examples that flouted the law on prohibition. The law was broken in all social classes, the use of liquor and crime increased throughout the country, and taxation income on alcohol was lost. As public criticism grew, an advisory referendum was held in 1931, and as a result the prohibition law was abolished the following year.
Riikka Pelo: Jokapäiväinen elämämme [Our everyday life]
13 June 2013 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Jokapäiväinen elämämme
[Our everyday life]
Helsinki: Teos, 2013. 526 p.
ISBN 978-951-851-389-9
35.90€, hardback
At the centre of Riikka Pelo’s second novel are the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva (1892–1941) and her daughter Ariadna Efron (1912–1975). This broad historical novel depicts the mental landscape of Russia during the period between the two great wars, from the 1920s to the 1940s. The mother is a religious believer and idealist, her daughter a more pragmatic empiricist. The family’s fate is controlled by the Soviet state apparatus, which sends it into exile in Paris where Tsvetaeva’s husband Sergei Efron takes a job as a secret police informer in an organisation devoted to the repatriation of Soviet emigrés. In the 1930s they return to Moscow, where life under the watchful eye of Stalin is filled with difficulty and paranoia. Pelo portrays the awkward relationship between mother and daughter with particular vividness. The indisputable star of the family is the mother – her ambition extends to her daughter, who to her disappointment is more interested in the visual arts than in poetry. The historical characters of Pelo’s impressive novel live their contradictory lives in decades of social upheaval.
Translated by David McDuff
Best-selling books in September
18 October 2012 | In the news
Number one on the September list of best-selling Finnish fiction titles, compiled by the Finnish Booksellers’ Association, is Sofi Oksanen’s new novel Kun kyyhkyset katosivat (‘When the doves disappeared’, Like): which shot straight to the top of the list on its publication in August.
The huge national and international success of her previous novel, Puhdistus – in English, Purge – published in 2008 and also set in Estonia, has paved the way for Kun kyyhkyset katosivat; translation rights have been sold to several countries already.
Number two on the list was Riikka Pulkkinen’s third novel, Vieras (‘The stranger’, Otava). In third and fourth places were two new thrillers, Paholaisen pennut (‘The devil’s cubs’, Tammi), by Leena Lehtolainen, and Ylösnousemus (‘Resurrection’, WSOY), by Ilkka Remes.
In fifth place was Sirpa Kähkönen’s novel Hietakehto (‘Sand cradle’, Otava): number six in her series set in the Kuopio region of eastern Finland, during the Second World War.
The non-fiction (translated foreign as well as Finnish) list was topped by Blaine Harden’s Escape from Camp 14 (in North Korea; Gummerus). The variety of subjects on this list can be surprising: number two is about angels (Lorna Byrne’s A Message of Hope from the Angels, Otava), number three a biography of a Finnish ex-con turned surgeon (Veitsen terällä, ‘On knife’s edge’, by Arno Kotro & Christer Lybäck, Otava), number four about the Cold War in Finland (Jukka Tarkka: Karhun kainalossa, ‘Under the arm of the bear’, Otava) and number five about cupcakes (by Angela Drake, Otava)…
Mauri Kunnas: Aarresaari
The three best-selling children’s books were by seasoned Finnish authors: illustrator-writer Mauri Kunnas, with his tribute to R.L Stevenson, Aarresaari (‘Treasure island’, Otava), Aino Havukainen & Sami Toivonen, with Tatu ja Patu pihalla (‘Tatu and Patu outdoors’, Otava) and Sinikka Nopola & Tiina Nopola, with their Risto Räppääjä ja nukkavieru Nelli (‘Risto Rapper and Threadbare Nelly’, Tammi).
Finland(ia) of the present day
2 December 2010 | In the news
Mikko Rimminen. Photo: Heini Lehväslaiho
The Finlandia Prize for Fiction 2010, worth €30,000, was awarded on 2 December to Mikko Rimminen (born 1975) ; his novel Nenäpäivä (‘Nose day’, Teos) was selected by the cultural journalist and editor Minna Joenniemi from a shortlist of six.
Appointed by the Finnish Book Foundation, the prize jury (Marianne Bargum, former publishing director of Söderströms, researcher and writer Lari Kotilainen and communications consultant Kirsi Piha) shortlisted the following novels:
Joel Haahtela: Katoamispiste (‘Vanishing point’, Otava), Markus Nummi: Karkkipäivä (‘Candy day’, Otava), Riikka Pulkkinen: Totta (‘True’, Teos), Mikko Rimminen: Nenäpäivä (‘Nose day’, Teos), Alexandra Salmela: 27 eli kuolema tekee taiteilijan (’27 or death makes an artist’, Teos) and Erik Wahlström: Flugtämjaren (in Finnish translation, Kärpäsenkesyttäjä, ‘The fly tamer’, Schildts). Here’s the FILI – Finnish Literature Exchange link to the jury’s comments.
Joenniemi noted the shortlisted books all involve problems experienced by people of different ages. How to be a consenting adult? How do adults listen to children? Contemporary society has been pushing the age limits of ‘youth’ upwards so that, for example, what used to be known as middle age now feels quite young. And, for example, in Erik Wahlström’s Flugtämjaren (now also on the shortlist for the Nordic Literature Prize 2011) the aged, paralysed 19th-century author J.L. Runeberg appears full of hatred: being revered as Finland’s national poet didn’t make him particularly noble-minded.
According to Joenniemi, Rimminen’s novel ‘takes a stand gently’ in its portrayal of contemporary life – in a city where a lonely person’s longing for human contacts takes on tragicomical proportions. Joenniemi finds Rimminen’s language ‘uniquely overflowing’. Its humour poses itself against the prevailing negative attitude, turning black into something lighter.
Rimminen has earlier published two collections of poems and two novels (Pussikaljaromaani, ‘Sixpack novel’, 2004, and Pölkky, ‘The log’, 2007) . Pussikaljaromaani has been translated into Dutch, German, Latvian, Russian and Swedish.
Funny stuff: best-selling books in February
13 March 2014 | In the news
The list of best-selling books – compiled by the Finnish Booksellers’ Association – shows that in February comedy was popular among readers. Number one on the Finnish fiction list was Fingerpori 7 (‘Fingerborg 7’, Arktinen Banaani), the latest comics book by Pertti Jarla, featuring silly stuff taking place in the city of Fingerpori.
Riikka Pulkkinen’s new novel, a romantic comedy entitled Iiris Lempivaaran levoton ja painava sydän (‘Iiris Lempivaara’s restless and heavy heart’, Otava) which was originally published in a weekly women’s magazine, was number four. A satirical television series featuring two silly women devoted to dating and clubbing has also resulted in a book written by the two actresses, Heli Sutela and Minna Koskela: Anne ja Ellu lomamatkalla (‘Anne and Ellu on holiday’, published by Annen ja Ellun tuotanto) made its way to the seventh place. Number eight was Pertti Jarla’s Fingerborg 4!
However, number two was a first novel about problems arising in a religious family, Taivaslaulu (‘Heaven song’, Gummerus), by Pauliina Rauhala. Number three was a first novel by an immigrant Somali woman, Nura Farah: Aavikon tyttäret (‘Daughters of the desert’, Otava) tells the story of women in Somalia in the second half of the 20th century.
On the non-fiction list, among cookbooks and diet guides, books on how to maintain a hormonal balance or how to wield a kettlebell sold well. A new biography, Tove Jansson (Tammi), telling the life story of the Moomin genius (1914–2001), the artist, painter, author and cartoonist, was number seven; the author is Tuula Karjalainen. (The book will be published in several countries this year, a World English edition in December.)
At the top of the best-selling children’s books list is a book entitled Muumit ja tekemisen taika – ‘The Moomins and the magic of doing’ (Tammi). This ‘Moomin’ book is written by Clive Alan: we know absolutely nothing about him (he is absent from his publisher’s list of authors!) – except that the name is a pseudonym.
Well, as before, it is our opinion that all the Moomin books really worth reading were created by Tove Jansson herself.
Happy birthday to us!
13 February 2014 | Letter from the Editors
Picture: Wikipedia
It’s been five years since Books from Finland went online, and we’re celebrating with a little bit of good news.
In the past year, the number of visits to the Books from Finland website has grown by 11 per cent. The number of US and UK readers grew by 29 per cent, while the number of readers in Germany – stimulated perhaps by the publicity Finnish literature is attracting as a result of its Guest Country status at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair – increased by an astonishing 59 per cent.
We’re chuffed, to put it mildly – and very thankful to you, dear readers, old and new. More…
Book-giving time!
12 November 2010 | In the news
The few weeks before Christmas are when most books are bought in Finland, so shortlists of literary prizes start popping up in November.
All the juries of the three biggest prizes – worth €30,000 each, awarded by the Finnish Book Foundation – have now published their shortlists: the Finlandia Prize for Non-Fiction, the Finlandia Junior Prize and the Finlandia Prize for Fiction.
The winners, each chosen by one person, will be announced in December. This FILI – Finnish Literature Exchange newsletter link will take you to the jury members’ assessments of the shortlisted non-fiction and Junior Prize works.
The following six novels ended up on the Finlandia Prize for Fiction list:
Joel Haahtela: Katoamispiste (‘Vanishing point’, Otava), Markus Nummi: Karkkipäivä (‘Candy day’, Otava), Riikka Pulkkinen: Totta (‘True’, Teos), Mikko Rimminen: Nenäpäivä (‘Nose day’, Teos), Alexandra Salmela: 27 eli kuolema tekee taiteilijan (’27 or death makes an artist’, Teos) and Erik Wahlström: Flugtämjaren (in Finnish translation, Kärpäsenkesyttäjä, ‘The fly tamer’, Schildts). Here’s the FILI link to the jury’s comments.
The books that sold
11 March 2011 | In the news
-Today we're off to the Middle Ages Fair. – Oh, right. - Welcome! I'm Knight Orgulf. – I'm a noblewoman. -Who are you? – The plague. *From Fingerpori by Pertti Jarla
Among the ten best-selling Finnish fiction books in 2010, according statistics compiled by the Booksellers’ Association of Finland, were three crime novels.
Number one on the list was the latest thriller by Ilkka Remes, Shokkiaalto (‘Shock wave‘, WSOY). It sold 72,600 copies. Second came a new family novel Totta (‘True’, Otava) by Riikka Pulkkinen, 59,100 copies.
Number three was a new thriller by Reijo Mäki (Kolmijalkainen mies, ‘The three-legged man’, Otava), and a new police novel by Matti Yrjänä Joensuu, Harjunpää ja rautahuone (‘Harjunpää and the iron room’, Otava), was number six.
The Finlandia Fiction Prize winner 2010, Nenäpäivä (‘Nose day’, Teos) by Mikko Rimminen, sold almost 54,000 copies and was fourth on the list. Sofi Oksanen’s record-breaking, prize-winning Puhdistus (Purge, WSOY; first published in 2008) was still in fifth place, with 52,000 copies sold.
Among translated fiction books were, as usual, names like Patricia Cornwell, Dan Brown and Liza Marklund.
In non-fiction, the weather, fickle and fierce, seems to be a subject of endless interest to Finns; the list was topped by Sääpäiväkirja 2011 (‘Weather book 2011’, Otava), with a whopping 140,000 copies. Number two was the Guinness World Records 2011, but with just 43,000 copies. Books on wine, cookery and garden were popular. A book on Finnish history after the civil war, Vihan ja rakkauden liekit (‘Flames of hate and love’, Otava) by Sirpa Kähkönen, made it to number 8 on the list.
The Finnish children’s books best-sellers’ list was topped by the latest picture book by Mauri Kunnas, Hurja-Harri ja pullon henki (‘Wild Harry and the genie’, Otava), selling almost 66,000 copies. As usual, Walt Disney ruled the roost in the translated fiction list.
The Finnish comics list was dominated by Pertti Jarla (his Fingerpori series books sold more than 70,000 copies, almost as much as Remes’ Shokkiaalto!) and Juba Tuomola (Viivi and Wagner series; both mostly published by Arktinen Banaani): between them, they grabbed 14 places out of 20!
Encounters with a language
12 December 2014 | Articles, Non-fiction
Mistranslation: illustration by Sminthopsis84/Wikimedia
Mother tongue: not Finnish. How do people become interested enough in the Finnish language in order to become translators? In the olden days some might have been greatly inspired by the music Sibelius (as were the eminent British translators of Finnish, David Barrett or Herbert Lomas, for example, back in the 1950s and 1960s). We asked contemporary translators to reminisce on how they in turn have become infatuated enough with Finnish to start studying and translating this small, somewhat eccentric northern language. Three translators into English, one into French, German and Latvian tell us why
What Finland read in November
17 December 2010 | In the news
Superheroes: Tatu and Patu by Aino Havukainen & Sami Toivonen
In November the latest thriller by Ilkka Remes, Shokkiaalto (‘Shock wave’, WSOY) topped the Booksellers’ Association of Finland’s list of the best-selling Finnish fiction. Sofi Oksanen’s prize-winning, much-translated 2008 novel Puhdistus (Purge, WSOY), has not left the best-selling list since it was awarded the Finlandia Prize for Fiction this autumn and was now number two.
Riikka Pulkkinen’s novel Totta (‘True’, Otava) was number three, and Tuomas Kyrö’s colllection of episodes from a grumpy old man’s life as told by himself, Mielensäpahoittaja (‘Taking offense’, WSOY), from last spring, occupied fourth place.
A new novel, Harjunpää ja rautahuone (‘Harjunpää and the iron room’, Otava), by the grand old man of Finnish crime, ex-policeman Matti Yrjänä Joensuu, was number five.
The most popular children’s book was a new picture book about two inventive and curious brothers, Tatu ja Patu supersankareina (‘Tatu and Patu as superheroes’, Otava) by Aino Havukainen and Sami Toivonen.
On the translated fiction list were books by, among others, Ildefonso Falcones, Jo Nesbø, Lee Child, Stephen King, Paulo Coelho and Paul Auster.
The non-fiction list included the traditional annual encyclopaedia Mitä missä milloin (‘What, where, when’, Otava, second place) as well as a political skit entitled Kuka mitä häh (‘Who what eh’, Otava) by Pekka Ervasti and Timo Haapala – the latter sold better, coming in at number one. In November the latest thriller by Ilkka Remes, Shokkiaalto (‘Shock wave’, WSOY) topped the Booksellers’ Association of Finland’s list of the best-selling Finnish fiction.
The Finlandia Prize for Fiction 2013
5 December 2013 | In the news
Riikka Pelo. Photo: Heini Lehväslaiho
The director general of the Helsinki City Theatre, Asko Sarkola, announced the winner of the 30th Finlandia Literature Prize for Fiction, chosen from a shortlist of six novels, on 2 December in Helsinki. The prize, worth €30,000, was awarded to Riikka Pelo for her novel Jokapäiväinen elämämme (‘Our everyday life’, Teos).
In his award speech Sarkola – and actor by training – characterised the six novels as ‘six different roles’:
‘They are united by a bold and deep understanding of individuality and humanity against the surrounding period. They are the perspectives of fictive individuals, new interpretations of the reality we imagine or suppose. Viewfinders on the present, warnings of the future.
‘Riikka Pelo‘s Jokapäiväinen elämämme is wound around two periods and places, Czechoslovakia in 1923 and the Soviet Union in 1939–41. The central characters are the poet Marina Tsvetaeva and her daughter Alya. This novel has the widest scope: from stream of consciousness to interrogations in torture chambers and the labour camps of Vorkuta; always moving, heart-stopping, irrespective of the settings.’
The five other novels were Ystäväni Rasputin (’My friend Rasputin’) by JP Koskinen, Hotel Sapiens (Teos) by Leena Krohn, Terminaali (‘The terminal’, Siltala) by Hannu Raittila, Herodes (‘Herod’, WSOY) by Asko Sahlberg and Hägring 38 (‘Mirage 38’, Schildts & Söderströms; Finnish translation, Kangastus, Otava) by Kjell Westö (see In the news for brief features).
The private I? Me and my home
17 June 2014 | Reviews
Art Nouveau with a modern twist. Photo: Avaimia ajattomiin suomalaisiin sisustuksiin / Jaanis Kerkis
Avaimia ajattomiin suomalaisiin sisustuksiin
[Keys to timeless Finnish interiors]
Design: Hanni Koroma, text: Sami Sykkö, photographs: Jaanis Kerkis
Helsinki: Gummerus, 2014. 123 pp., ill.
ISBN 978-951-20-9507-0
€32.90, hardback
Katja Lindroos
MOMO. Koti elementissään
[MOMO. The home in its element]
Photography: Riikka Kantinkoski, Niclas Warius
Helsinki: Siltala, 2013. 154 pp., ill.
ISBN 978-952-234-164-8
€32.90, hardback
www.momokoti.fi (in Finnish only)
‘Interior decoration’ has become an extremely popular pastime in Finland – as elsewhere where the standard of living allows it.
Innumerable magazines and blogs keep churning out photos of rooms with large white, cushioned sofas, glossy white kitchen cabinets and white floors on which furniture seems to float forlornly. Walls are decorated with wooden or metallic letters forming words: love; home, sweet home. In the kitchen the bread bin bears the word BREAD. (Bookcases, with actual books, are rare.)
Why is it that in our age which worships ‘individuality’, trends rule? More…