Search results for "jarkko laine prize"
Johan Bargum’s analyses
30 June 1982 | Archives online, Authors
Johan Bargum. Photo: Irmeli Jung
Few Finland-Swedish authors can make a living by their writing. A readership of little more than 300,000 cannot support a large number of writers, and only the most successful books sell more than a thousand copies. Writers have thus no choice but to seek other markets, notably in Sweden or among the Finnish-speaking population.
Both alternatives present problems, but popular writers like Henrik Tikkanen and Christer Kihlman are tending more and more to publish simultaneously in all three markets. Since the publication of his novel Den privata detektiven (‘The private detective’) in 1980, which even became the Book of the Month in Sweden, Johan Bargum has joined this group. Enthusiastic reviewers have since speculated on the possibility of translations into other European languages.
Born in 1943, Bargum grew up in Helsinki and, like so many other writers with their roots in the Finnish capital, he comes from an upper-class family. Politically he belongs to the left, while artistically he has benefited from family tradition: both his grandmother, Margit von Willebrand-Hollmerus, and his mother, Viveca Hollmerus, are well-known authors. Writing as a family tradition is actually quite a common phenomenon in Finland-Swedish literature.
A social conscience
Thanks to his skill as a dramatist as well as a prose-writer, Johan Bargum has been able to live by his pen for the past ten years. Early in the 1970s he had a success with Som snort (‘A cinch’), Bygga bastu (‘Building a sauna’) and Virke och verkan (‘Material and the making’), all specially written for Lilla Teatern, the Swedish-language theatre in Helsinki. In this trilogy he was concerned with the difficulties encountered by small businessman in their struggle against large monopolies. His text is characterized by a strong ironic humour. More…
Christel Rönns: Det vidunderliga ägget [A most extraordinary egg]
24 January 2013 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Det vidunderliga ägget
[A most extraordinary egg]
Kuvitus [Ill. by]: Christel Rönns
Helsingfors: Söderströms / Stockholm: Bonnier Carlsen Bokförlag, 2012. 32 p., ill.
ISBN 978-91-638-6857-3
€16.90, hardback
Finnish edition:
Perin erikoinen muna
Suom. [Translated by] Mirjam Ilvas
Helsinki: Tammi, 2012. 30 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-523-183-3
€15.90, hardback
This is the third work that the graphic designer and illustrator Christel Rönns (born 1960) has written in her own right. With her relaxed and humorous illustration style, Rönns has provided the visual component of some 60 children’s books. This story portrays a family – parents, two little girls and a dog (the author has dedicated her book to the memory of her hovawart dog Freja who died at 14). One summer’s day they find a large egg on the beach and bring it home. But the egg, dropped by accident, reveals a little four-legged creature: named Koi-Koi, it turns out to be delightfully friendly and playful. Nobody actually knows what it is – not even a professor of zoology – but it eats and grows to an enormous size, so the house becomes very cramped (and Koi-Koi’s massive farts send the family running…). But then Koi-Koi begins to disappear at night, and one day he doesn’t come back. Missing a lost pet is a new feeling for the girls (their parents must be secretly relieved, as must the dog!). The story is both funny and gently melancholy, the illustrations detailed and humorous. The book was awarded the Finlandia Junior Prize in 2012.
Marjo T. Nieminen: Tiedon tyttäret [The daughters of knowledge]
20 March 2009 | Mini reviews
Tiedon tyttäret. Oppineita eurooppalaisia naisia antiikista valistukseen
[The daughters of knowledge. Female European scholars from antiquity to the Enlightenment]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2008. 445 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-0-31824-9
€ 52, hardback
This richly illustrated work, the winner of the 2008 Finlandia Prize for Non-Fiction, tells the story of female scholars representing 25 different fields of study. The book also contains shorter introductions on more than a hundred women who have influenced the development of science. Hypatia of Alexandria, the prominent mathematician and astronomer murdered in 415 A.D. because she was considered politically dangerous, is one of the most famous of them, while others have been forgotten: in the 1660s – at the age of only thirteen – the pioneering entomologist, naturalist and explorer Maria Sibylla Merian made findings which would have called into question the current teachings of natural history, had they entered into wider public knowledge. Marjo T. Nurminen (born 1967). is an archaeologist specialised in the philosophy of science, and she works as the science editor for the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
Antti Hyry: Uuni [The stove]
22 January 2010 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Uuni
[The stove]
Helsinki: Otava, 2009. 400 p.
ISBN 978-951-1-23845-4
28 €, hardback
Many authors have inspired imitators, at least for a brief period, but few prove to be so original that they lend their name to an entire stylistic movement. Antti Hyry (born 1931), whose debut work was published in 1958, is a member of this most influential class of writers. His pared-down ‘Hyryesque’ sentences, which convey in a stark, crystal-clear manner only that which his characters think or observe, have been at the core of Finnish modernism for over half a century now. His latest novel, a tranquil, even meditative work, describes in minute detail – virtually brick by brick – how a man constructs a great wood-burning hearth in his house. Alongside the building work, Hyry provides minutely observed details of the natural surroundings and nearby people. Rich in content and brilliant in its simplicity, this novel was awarded the 2009 Finlandia Prize for fiction.
The naked truth
18 January 2011 | This 'n' that
Out with the truth: sauna camaraderie in the film Steam of Life. Photo: Oktober
Finnish men don’t usually open up about much, it’s generally thought, as they don’t like to speak about feelings.
But in the sauna, it’s different. Intimacies are revealed in its soft steam, by men who sit there quietly and give voice to the sorrows of their lives.
In Miesten vuoro / Steam of Life, a full-length documentary film by two directors, Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen which premiered in March 2010, Finnish men both talk and weep. They have gained considerable popularity among audiences in Finland and abroad.
A naked guy sits on a wooden bench in the steam or outside the sauna building (which could be an old wooden hut in the countryside, a modern city sauna or some odd construction serving the purpose) with a bottle of beer in his hand, and tells the man sitting next to him in earnest about his dead child, new wife, or the death of his mother: the great sorrows or joys of his life.
Water, fire, bare skin and no ornaments: vulnerability. He can be a war veteran or a younger man, lonely or happily married. But he talks, cleansing himself both physically and mentally.
Steam of Life has so far been seen by approximately 50,000 people in Finland, and the DVD has sold more than 28,000 copies. It is the first Finnish documentary to compete for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Oscar nominees will be published on 25 January, with the award ceremony taking place at the end of February.
Steam of Life has won prizes both in Finland and abroad: in Tel Aviv, Warsaw, Pärnu in Estonia, Germany (DOK Leipzig where it won a Silver Dove) and Portugal. It received a Special Jury Mention at the Silverdocs documentary film festival in the United Sates and the Prize of the Interreligious Jury at the Visions du Réel festival in Switzerland. It will continue its tour of film festivals this year; see the trailer here.
The DOK Leipzig jury commented: ‘The film, deliberately set in an original Finnish situation – a sauna, opens a door into the intimate and hidden world of men’s fragility and vulnerability, turning the sauna into a place where naked truth is told by naked men. The film bends together tragic and comic….’
Mies ei puhu eikä pussaa is a saying; we’d translate this as ‘a Finn neither speaks nor snogs’, Finn referring to a male person. But the times, they are a-changing, it seems.
Hip hip hurray!
13 June 2014 | This 'n' that
Tove Jansson, 1956. Photo: @Moomin Characters™
The English author of bestselling children’s fantasy books Philip Pullman – of His Dark Materials fame – declares himself a devoted fan of Tove Jansson, the Finnish Moomin-creator and artist, whose stories and novels have been translated into 44 languages.
Pullman has been a fan since the age of eight – now, reassessing Jansson’s work, he notes ‘the perfection of the drawings’. Jansson illustrated her Moomin books, in black-and-white mostly.
Pullman reviews two books in Books for Keeps, the British online children’s book magazine: the newly translated biography of Tove Jansson (1914–2001) by the Swedish scholar Boel Westin (Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words, Sort of Books, 2014) and Tove Jansson’s memoir from her childhood, Sculptor’s Daughter. ‘Jansson responded to the world with a freshness and originality that have hardly ever been matched in the field of children’s books,’ he writes.
The artist, painter, writer Tove Jansson was born on 9 August – almost a hundred years ago. A major centenary exhibition of her work at the Finnish National Gallery Ateneum is open until 7 September.
Pullman concludes: ‘she could convey all the excitement of wonder as well as the reassurance of comfort and familial love – and [–] evoke a mood of apprehension, loss and mystery. She should have had the Nobel Prize.’
Three cheers – we at Books from Finland agree!
Aki Ollikainen: Nälkävuosi [The year of hunger]
23 November 2012 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Nälkävuosi
Helsinki: Siltala, 2012. 139 p.
ISBN 978-952-234-089-4
€32.90, hardback
Finland, winter 1867, famine. The historical framework of this first novel by Aki Ollikainen (born 1973) is barren and the twists of the plot, almost without exception, are dark. The novella weaves together two stories: the poor people of the countryside live hand to mouth, whereas city businessmen, the brothers Teo and Lars Renqvist, agonise about their love problems in their well-heated houses. Of a family of four that sets out from the countryside on a begging mission, only one lives to see the following spring and the melting of the snow. The beast in people leaps forth: when there is no longer anything left to lose, humanity, an unnecessary burden, is trampled into the mud. The whiteness of the endless winter becomes the colour of hunger and of death. Ollikainen’s brief and tragically beautiful novel – which won the Helsingin Sanomat Prize for first works in November – tells its cruel tale with a warmth that is not in conflict with the events it describes. When the roads of city gents and country people entwine, humanity wins, light dawns.
Translated by Hildi Hawkins
Panu Rajala: Naisten mies ja aatteiden. Juhani Ahon elämäntaide [A ladies’ man of ideas. Juhani Aho’s art of living]
26 January 2012 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Naisten mies ja aatteiden. Juhani Ahon elämäntaide
[A ladies’ man of ideas. Juhani Aho’s art of living]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2011. 441 p., ill.
ISBN 9789510374412
€ 35, hardback
Of Juhani Aho (1861–1921) it is said that he created what have proved to be the most enduring descriptions of how traditional Finland began to be modernised; his most famous book is the novella Rautatie (‘The railway’, 1884) which portrays the arrival of the railway in the Finnish countryside. This new biography also shows once again how many international influences can be found in the work of Aho, who is often called a national author. Aho was active in student politics, and as a newspaper journalist. He was nominated for the Nobel Literature Prize twelve times, but for various reasons, some of them connected with language politics, lobbying on his behalf was not successful. Aho developed Finnish prose, bringing to it realism and impressionistic style. His experiences during a visit to Paris in 1889 form the basis of his novel Yksin (‘Alone’), which caused a stir in part because of its erotic flavour. This book by the author and literary scholar Panu Rajala provides a versatile insight into Aho’s personal story, the world of his ideas, his opinions on art, and his complex relationships.
Translated by David McDuff
Our fellow creatures
30 June 2004 | Authors, Reviews
Photo: Tiina Itkonen
Hannele Huovi is a compelling story-teller (see page 98) but, again and again, she makes us realise what a strange place our world is – how easily we can slip out of it into dream or psychosis, or cross some concealed frontier into a parallel universe.
Hers is a readable form of surrealism – the art of defamiliarising familiar things by putting them in anomalous environments. The results are absorbing for children but fascinating and entertaining for adults too, an essential of good children’s literature. Because it can be serious without being solemn and can expand consciousness, the genre has engaged very great wits from Jonathan Swift to Lewis Carroll. Eeva-Liisa Manner’s stories (see Books from Finland 1/2004) are another obvious point of contact, but Huovi is brilliantly inventive and completely original. More…
Not so weird?
12 December 2013 | Non-fiction, Reviews
Johanna Sinisalo. Photo: Katja Lösönen
Johanna Sinisalo’s new novel Auringon ydin (‘The core of the sun‘, Teos, 2013), invites readers to take part in a thought experiment: What if a few minor details in the course of history had set things on a different track?
If Finnish society were built on the same principle of sisu, or inner grit, as it is now but with an emphasis on slightly different aspects, Finland in 2017 might be a ‘eusistocracy’. This term comes from the ancient Greek and Latin roots eu (meaning ‘good’) and sistere (‘stop, stand’), and it means an extreme welfare state.
In the alternative Finland portrayed in Auringon ydin, individual freedoms have been drastically restricted in the name of the public good. Restrictions have been placed on dangerous foreign influences: no internet, no mobile phones. All mood-enhancing substances such as alcohol and nicotine have been eradicated. Only one such substance remains in the authorities’ sights: chilli, which continues to make it over the border on occasion. More…
Mirkka Lappalainen: Pohjolan Leijona. Kustaa II Aadolf ja Suomi 1611–1632 [Lion of the North. Gustavus Adolphus and Finland, 1611–1632]
3 December 2014 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Pohjolan Leijona. Kustaa II Aadolf ja Suomi 1611–1632
[Lion of the North. Gustavus Adolphus and Finland, 1611–1632]
Helsinki: Siltala, 2014. 321 pp., ill.
ISBN 978-952-234-242-3
€31.50, hardback
The book presents a diverse and vivid history of the reign of Gustavus Adolphus – possibly the most important ruler in Swedish history – his era and his impact on Finland. When he rose to the throne at the age of just 17 in 1611, Finland was a strategically important region because of the threat posed by Russia and Poland. Among other things the king organised a meeting of representatives of the estates in Finland, the Regional Parliament of 1616 – even though he felt distrust of the Finnish people, who had supported the Polish King Sigismund, who had sought the Swedish crown. When the threat from the East had been repelled, Finland remained as a marginal corner of the world, which mainly provided taxes and soldiers. In 1630 the King, as a Lutheran soldier of faith, took his troops to Germany to fight in the Thirty Years War, and fell in 1632. However, in the period described the Swedish state, with Finland as a part of it, became a centralised state led by the King and his Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, a system of government that was one of the most efficient in Europe. Lappalainen received the Finlandia Prize for Non-Fiction 2014 for her book.
Translated by David McDuff
Poetry and Patriotism
31 December 1985 | Archives online, Authors, Essays
J.L. Runeberg. Painting by Albert Edelfelt. 1893.
Much revered, but little read today, Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804-1877) is famed for his patriotism and glorification of war in a just cause. Yet Finland’s national poet did not write in Finnish, and never heard a shot fired in anger. It is, perhaps, time for a reappraisal.
What did he himself think about becoming a national poet?
Enjoyed it, probably? Who wouldn’t!
Did he write what he wanted and let
the people find their own interpretation?
Or did he write what he believed
the people expected
of a national poet?
Lars Huldén, 1978
It would not be inappropriate to begin a collection of thoughts about Finland’s ‘national poet,’ Johan Ludvig Runeberg, with a biblical text, Second Samuel, 1:25: ‘How are the mighty fallen!’ Runeberg does not own the position he once did, either in the world at large or in Scandinavia; even in his home land his exceptional grandeur has been reduced or, horribile dictu, smiled at. More…
Wo/men at war
9 February 2012 | Essays, Non-fiction
The wars that Finland fought 70 years and a couple of generations ago continue to be a subject of fiction. Last year saw the appearance of three novels set during the years of the Continuation War (1941–44), written by Marja-Liisa Heino, Katja Kettu and Jenni Linturi
In reviews of Finnish books published this past autumn, young women writers’ portraits of war were pigeonholed time and again as a ‘category’ of their own. This gendered observation has been a source of annoyance to the writers themselves.
Jenni Linturi, for instance, refused to ruminate on the impact of her sex on her debut novel Isänmaan tähden (‘For the fatherland’, Teos), which describes the war through the Waffen-SS Finnish volunteer units and the men who joined them [1,200 Finnish soldiers were recruited in 1941, and they formed a battalion, Finnische Freiwilligen Battaillon der Waffen-SS].
The work received a well-deserved Finlandia Prize nomination. Tiring of questions from the press about ‘young women and war’, Linturi (born 1979) was moved to speculate that some critics’ praise had been misapplied due to her sex. The situation is an apt reflection of the waves of modern feminism and the reasoning of the so-called third generation of feminists, who reject gender-limited points of view on principle. More…