Recent articles by Soila Lehtonen
Soila Lehtonen
Challenged by colour
1 April 2010 | Authors, Interviews
Hannu Väisänen. Photo: Paula Kukkonen
Interview with Hannu Väisänen, author of the novel Kuperat ja koverat (‘Convex and concave’, 2010)
For the painter and writer Hannu Väisänen, colour speaks volumes.
In the novel Toiset kengät (‘The other shoes’, 2007, Otava) awarded the Finlandia Prize for Fiction), teenage wannabe artist Antero manages to escape his grey northern hometown of Oulu; he is heading for the eastern Finnish town of Savonlinna, where he will go to art college. Triumphantly Antero dyes his blond hair black in the bus station toilet.
‘Perhaps it was all a question of the right colours and the right timing of colours,’ Antero thinks. In Kuperat ja koverat (‘Convex and concave’, 2010), he leaves for the capital, determined to get into the academy of art. His hair is still black. More…
Soila Lehtonen
Poetic excercises by the sea: Herbert Lomas (re)visited
21 November 2009 | Authors, Interviews
Poet ahoy: Herbert Lomas in Aldeburgh. Photo: Soila Lehtonen
The prize-winning British poet Herbert Lomas has been translating Finnish poetry – much of it for Books from Finland – for more than thirty years. Soila Lehtonen, our Editor-in-Chief and his long-time collaborator, interviews him on the occasion of the publication of his collected poems, A Casual Knack of Living
The shoreline and the seaside promenade stretch out along the windy East Suffolk coast in Aldeburgh, where Herbert Lomas lives in a pink house called North Gable.
In summer thousands of tourists frequent the picturesque village, particularly during the music festival in June, founded in 1948 by the local composer Benjamin Britten. A poetry festival, too, takes place every autumn, this year for the 21st time.
Herbert – Bertie to those, like us at Books from Finland, who know him well – has just published a handsome tome of poetry, A Casual Knack of Living, containing poems from nine earlier collections plus a selection of previously unpublished poems, entitled Nightlights. The home of his publisher, Arc Publications, is in the village where he was born, 85 years ago, Todmorden in the Pennines. More…
Soila Lehtonen
Survival games
9 October 2009 | Authors, Reviews
Sari Malkamäki. - Photo: Irmeli Jung
Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters in Sari Malkamäki’s new short stories
The relationship between parents and children is the central theme of Sari Malkamäki’s fifteen new short stories. She published her first collection in 1994; in Jälkikasvu (‘Offspring’, Otava, 2009), her tenth book, the few stories in which children don’t appear nevertheless allude to childhood experiences or to a child who sets the narrative in motion.
The point of view may be that of the child or of the parent, the focus of description some moment that forms a turning point in the characters’ circumstances, or even in their lives. Malkamäki’s children are often touchingly resourceful and brave, even when their adults fail them. More…
Soila Lehtonen
In Darwin’s garden
3 September 2009 | Authors, Interviews
Interview with Kristina Carlson, author of Herra Darwinin puutarhuri (‘Mr Darwin’s gardener’, 2009)
Kristina Carlson. Photo: Tommi Tuomi
Time: late 1870s. November. Place: the village of Downe, Kent, England. Villagers gather in the church on a rainy Sunday. Thomas Davies stays at home with his two children.
After the death of his wife, Thomas has been unable to get over his grief and anxiety. The villagers don’t approve of Thomas’s way of living – he isn’t sociable, keeps to himself, doesn’t go to church, and reads too many books. His employer is Charles Darwin: a famous – or notorious – man who writes too many books. ‘Mr Darwin lives here, and atheism is a worse threat than in the neighbouring villages,’ says Stuart Wilkes, voicing the views of the villagers.
Thomas is the central character in Kristina Carlson’s new novel, Herra Darwinin puutarhuri (‘Mr Darwin’s gardener’, Otava, 2009). Ten years ago her previous novel, Maan ääreen (‘To the end of the earth’), set in 19th-century Siberia, won the Finlandia Prize for Fiction.
As 2009 is the second centenary of Charles Darwin, the author of On the Origin of Species (published in 1859), the first question that comes to mind is whether this is coincidental or not… More…
Soila Lehtonen
Jarkko Nieminen: Pelaamisen lumo [The fascination of the game]
20 August 2009 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Pelaamisen lumo [The fascination of the game]
Helsinki: Avain, 2009. 175 p., ill.
978-952-5524-69-7
€ 38, hardback
Tennis is a curious game, as everyone who plays it knows – and even those who don’t, which is why it is such a popular sport. Although Jarkko Nieminen (born 1981), a professional player since 2000, has not yet won a Grand Slam event for Finland, in 2006 he was ranked no. 13. (Unfortunately, this spring Nieminen injured his wrist and missed the top matches of the season.) In this book (edited and published by his sister Anna-Riikka Carlson, who founded the publishing company Avain in 2003), Nieminen tells the story of his athletic career. ‘In Japan my visa said I was an “entertainer”,’ he recalls as he describes what it’s like to walk out on a court filled with thousands of spectators. Tennis is a gentleman’s game, a polite duel (or double), and Nieminen is certainly a gentleman par excellence. His personal story is designed to be strictly informative, as he chooses to keep his family life private, for example (his wife Anu, née Weckström, a Finnish multiple badminton champion, is referred to once). There is no doubt, though, that the reader will be convinced of Nieminen’s happy choice of an athletic profession.
Soila Lehtonen
Julia Donner & Taneli Eskola: Löytöretki Helsinkiin. Exploring Helsinki. Helsingfors på upptäcktsfärd
20 August 2009 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Löytöretki Helsinkiin. Paikkoja, polkuja, puutarhoja. Exploring Helsinki. Places, paths, gardens. I Helsingfors på upptäcktsfärd. Platser, stigar, trädgårdar
Helsinki: Multikustannus, 2008. 167 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-468-147-6
€ 42, hardback
In this book, author Julia Donner and photographer Taneli Eskola make a walking tour of the less familiar byways of their native Helsinki, in the changing seasons between 2007 and 2008. Donner quotes authors and poets while recording some of the city’s history. She takes the reader through places often ignored – small, modest enclosures between buildings that only just qualify for the name of parks, suburban parklands or the rocky spaces that have been left untouched in the heart of the city. Eskola’s photographs record the graphic details of frost and sleet as well as the first tinges of spring green, of flora, rocks, water and sky. Some of the text is printed in both Swedish and English. A map would have been useful to readers who are not familiar with Helsinki; some of the photographs also lack captions. This beautiful book, designed by Timo Numminen, is an original series of views that have not been prettified but are true to the everyday life of the city. And readers who live in Helsinki will be surprised by what they discover.
Soila Lehtonen
Food for thought
23 July 2009 | In the news
Dinner in a dash: surprise soup?
The flow of cookbooks into bookshops has recently – and universally – slowed down a little, as the internet provides more and more recipes for those wishing to experiment with cuisine.
Soila Lehtonen
Sealspotting
14 June 2009 | Reviews
Zzzzzzz! In the grey seal kindergarten babies take a nap after dinner. – Photo: Seppo Keränen
Taskinen, Juha
Paluu Saimaalle
[Return to Lake Saimaa]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2009. 204 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-0-33745-5
€ 38.90, hardback
Keränen, Seppo & Lappalainen, Markku
Hylkeet [The seals]
Helsinki: Maahenki, 2009. 151 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-56-5266-6
€ 45, hardback
Sälar
Helsingfors: Söderströms, 2009.
151 p., ill.
Swedish translation: Annika Luther
ISBN 978-951-52-2603-7
€ 45, hardback
The private life of the species of seal that lives only in Lake Saimaa has been carefully investigated lately. Almost everything about this highly endangered species has been revealed, thanks to technological devices such as transmitters that can be glued to their backs…
STOP! WARNING: as I realise that not everybody wants to know what pinnipeds do in their spare time, I suggest you quit reading now, if you aren’t interested in the lives and fates of an obscure group of about 260 mammals that live in a lake in the remote west of Finland.
Soila Lehtonen
Writers meet again in Lahti
14 May 2009 | In the news
In other words: LIWRE at Messilä Manor
The Lahti International Writers’ Reunion (LIWRE; www.liwre.fi) will be held this year between 14 and 16 June.
In the politically and culturally active 1960s, marked by the confrontation between East and West, an idea was born to found an international, bi-annual rendezvous where writers from all over the world could freely engage in discussions on various themes.
Soila Lehtonen
Eino Leino Prize to Hannele Huovi
17 April 2009 | In the news
Hannele Huovi. - Photo: Laura Vesa
‘Methinks,/ said the sausage dog / who loved eating verse, that / poetry is tastier than bone.’ (From Karvakorvan runopurkki [Furry pooch’s jar of verse])
Hannele Huovi (born 1949) has received the 2009 Eino Leino Prize, worth € 5,200 and funded by the Finnish Book Foundation, for her extensive work as a writer of books for children and young people, of novels, poetry and text books. More…
Soila Lehtonen
Funny stuff
1 April 2009 | In the news
Milla Paloniemi's swearing hedgehog
For the first time, comic books rule the latest bestsellers list of Finnish fiction.
A cartoon series called Fingerpori by Pertti Jarla evidently tickles the Finnish funny bone, as three of his collections occupy the second, sixth and eighth places on the February top ten list, compiled by the Booksellers’ Association of Finland. More…
Soila Lehtonen
Maire Gullichsen: Regnbågsfärger, mörka stänk. Minnesvandringar 1907–1928 [Rainbow colours, dark shadows. Journeys in memory 1907–1928]
19 March 2009 | Mini reviews
Maire Gullichsen: Regnbågsfärger, mörka stänk. Minnesvandringar 1907–1928
[Maire Gullichsen: Rainbow colours, dark shadows. Journeys in memory 1907–1928]
Red. [Ed. by] Cita Reuter
Helsingfors: Svenska Litteratursällskapet in Finland, 2008. 357 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-583-165-1
€ 40, hardback
Maire Gullichsen, née Ahlström (1907–1990), an inheritor of the influential Ahlström timber, paper and metal company, was a prominent promoter of Finnish modern art, design and architecture and an art collector. In 1935, together with the architects Alvar and Aino Aalto and the journalist Nils-Gustav Hahl, she founded the design company Artek, which is still in business today. This book is based on her hitherto unpublished memoirs in which she recorded her life up to her marriage, to Harry Gullichsen, in 1928. Their home, Villa Mairea (1939) in the Ahlström family’s home district of Norrmark (Noormarkku) on Finland’s west coast, was designed by Alvar Aalto and remains one of the iconic examples of organic modernism. This richly illustrated volume gives a lively, detailed picture of a wealthy family during the tumultuous years of rapid industrialisation and struggle for independence in Finland. Maire Gullichsen’s daughter Professor Lilli Alanen and art historian Helen Woirhaye complement the author’s memoirs with articles providing information on the years after 1928.
Soila Lehtonen
Hannele Huovi: Karvakorvan runopurkki [Furry pooch’s jar of verse]
4 March 2009 | Mini reviews
Karvakorvan runopurkki
[Furry pooch’s jar of verse]
Kuvitus [Ill. by]: Kristiina Louhi
Helsinki: Tammi, 2008. 79 p.
ISBN 978-951-31-3974-2
€ 23.30, hardback
‘Methinks,/ said the sausage dog / who loved eating verse, that / poetry is tastier than bone’. Hannele Huovi (born 1949) has written poetry, books for children, novels and fables. The masterly rhymes of Finland’s grand old lady of children’s poetry, Kirsi Kunnas (born 1924), are hard to match, but Huovi comes close. For her, Finnish is easily pliable; her rhymes do not try to be too clever, her tone of voice is warm and humorous, and often the poems are little stories in the tradition of nonsense verse. Huovi’s sense of humour matches perfectly with Kristiina Louhi’s pastel pictures which often add surprising dimensions to the poetic stories. ‘So complete / trust can be: / with your paws skywards, /with your belly bared, you can / lie in the grass.’
Soila Lehtonen
Tove Appelgren & Salla Savolainen: Vesta-Linnéas svartaste tanke [Vesta-Linnea down in the dumps]
4 March 2009 | Mini reviews
Vesta-Linnéas svartaste tanke
[Vesta-Linnea down in the dumps]
Helsingfors: Söderströms, 2008. 34 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-52-2568-9
€ 17, hardback
Vesta-Linnea mieli mustana
Suomentanut [Translated into Finnish by] Tittamari Marttinen
Helsinki: Tammi, 2008. 34 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-31-4204-9
€ 15.20, hardback
Vesta-Linnéa’s family consists of her mother, stepfather, two younger sisters and a big brother. In her opinion, little sisters can be unbearably stupid, and mother understands nothing. In this fourth book about Vesta-Linnéa, the enraged heroine imagines her own funeral after a serious row with her sisters: she would make a beautiful corpse, and then everyone would surely cry their eyes out. Or would they? Appelgren (born 1969) concisely depicts a popular daydream of revenge among little girls with humour. Salla Savolainen’s colourful, comical, detailed but relaxed cartoon-like illustrations work well with the text. And mother turns out to be not so lacking in understanding after all.
Soila Lehtonen
Sisters beneath the skin — the letters of Edith Södergran and Hagar Olsson
11 February 2009 | Articles, Authors, Extracts
Edith Södergran and Hagar Olsson. – Photos: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, Åbo Akademis bildsamlingar.