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Des res
Extracts from the novel Juoksuhaudantie (‘The Trench Road’, WSOY, 2002)
Matti Virtanen
I belonged to that small group of men who were the first in this country to dedicate themselves to the home front and to women’s emancipation. I feel I can say this without boasting and without causing any bickering between the sexes.
A home veteran looks after all the housework and understands women. Throughout our marriage I have done everything that our fathers did not. I did the laundry, cooked the food, cleaned the flat, I gave her time to herself and protected the family from society. For hours on end I listened to her work problems, her emotional ups and downs and her hopes for more varied displays of affection. I implemented comprehensive strategies to free her from the cooker. I was always ready with provisions when she got home exhausted after a day at work. More…
Let us eat cake
4 February 2010 | This 'n' that
A national favourite. Photo: Ville Koistinen
Here at Books from Finland central we’re celebrating, with the one Finnish literary anniversary that involves its own dedicated cake.
The fifth of February marks the birthday of the poet J.L. Runeberg (1804–1877) – writer, among many other things, of the Finnish national anthem (actually unofficial, as there’s no mention of such a thing in the legislation), which he wrote in Swedish, Vårt land (in Finnish, Maamme). More…
Sofi Oksanen wins the 2008 Finlandia Prize
10 February 2009 | In the news
Sofi Oksanen. - Photo: Toni Härkönen/WSOY.
The Finlandia Prize for Fiction, Finland’s most prestigious literary prize, was awarded to Sofi Oksanen’s novel Puhdistus (‘Purge’, WSOY, 2008). ‘When the concentrated focus of drama and the multidimensionality of narrative conjoin, Puhdistus is born – a muscular, harsh, and solid book’, said the writer and critic Pekka Tarkka awarding the prize on 4 December. (For a short review, see the Review section.)
The prize, worth € 30,000, was awarded for the twenty-fifth time. The final choice was made from the shortlist of six candidates; the others were 14 solmua Greenwichiin (‘14 knots to Greenwich’, Otava) by Olli Jalonen, Kosmonautti (‘The cosmonaut’, Tammi) by Katri Lipson, Marie (Otava) by Arne Nevanlinna, Kohtuuttomuus (‘Excess’, Siltala) by Pirkko Saisio and Paholaisen haarukka (‘The Devil’s fork’, WSOY) by Juha Seppälä. More…
Solzhenitsyn and Silberfeldt: Sofi Oksanen publishes a best-seller
25 April 2012 | In the news
Nobel Prize 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
After falling out with her original publisher, WSOY, in 2010, author Sofi Oksanen – whose third novel, Puhdistus (Purge, 2008), has become an international best-seller – has founded a new publishing company, Silberfeldt, in 2011, with the aim of publishing paperback editions of her own books. Its first release was a paperback version of Oksanen’s second novel, Baby Jane.
Oksanen’s new novel, Kun kyyhkyset katosivat (‘When the pigeons disappeared’), again set in Estonia, will appear this autumn, published by Like (a company owned by Finnish publishing giant Otava).
However, in April Silberfeldt published a new, one-volume edition of the autobiographical novel The Gulag Archipelago by the Nobel Prize-winning author Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. This massive book was first published in the West in 1973, in the Soviet Union in 1989.
A Finnish translation was published between 1974 and 1978. Back in those days of Cold War self-censorship, Finnish publishers felt unable to take up the controversial book, and the first volume was eventually printed in Sweden. The work, finally published in three volumes, has long since been unavailable.
This time the 3,000 new copies of Solzhenitsyn’s tome sold out in a few days; a second printing is coming up soon. Oksanen regards the work as a classic that should be available to Finnish readers.
Nordic prize to Sofi Oksanen
31 March 2010 | In the news
Sofi Oksanen. Photo: Toni Härkönen
The Nordic Council’s Literary Prize 2010 has been awarded to Sofi Oksanen for her novel Puhdistus (‘Purge’, WSOY, 2008).
The winning novel was selected by a jury from a shortlist of 11 works from the Nordic countries. The prize, worth approximately 47,000 euros, will be awarded in Reykjavik in November.
The novel, about women’s fates in the violent history of 20th-century Estonia, was awarded both the Finlandia Prize for Fiction and the Runeberg Prize in Finland, where it has sold more than 142,000 copies.
So far publication rights have been sold to 27 countries; the English translation, by Lola Rogers, will appear next month in the US, published by Grove Press.
The way to heaven
30 June 1996 | Archives online, Fiction
Extracts from the novel Pyhiesi yhteyteen (‘Numbered among your saints’, WSOY, 1995). Interview with Jari Tervo by Jari Tervo
The wind sighs. The sound comes about when a cloud drives through a tree. I hear birds, as a young girl I could identify the species from the song; now I can no longer see them properly, and hear only distant song. Whether sparrow, titmouse or lark. Exact names, too, tend to disappear. Sometimes, in the old people’s home, I find myself staring at my food, what it is served on, and can’t get the name into my head. The sun came to my grandson’s funeral. It rose from the grave into which my little Marzipan will be lowered. I don’t remember what the weather did when my husband was buried.
A plate. Food is served on a plate. There are deep plates and shallow plates; soups are ladled into the deep ones. More…
Sofi Oksanen: Puhdistus [Purge]
5 February 2009 | Mini reviews
![Sofi Oksanen: Puhdistus [Purge]](https://booksfromfinland.fi/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/puhdistusweb-130x164.jpg "Sofi Oksanen: Puhdistus")
Puhdistus
[Purge]
Helsinki: WSOY, 2008. 380 p.
ISBN 978-951-0-33973-2
€ 29.90, paperback
Sofi Oksanen’s first play Puhdistus (‘Purge’) was staged at Finland’s National Theatre in 2007. Oksanen (born 1977) has an Estonian-Finnish background and studied at the Theatre Academy. Puhdistus, her third novel, retells the story of her play about two women and moves through the past by flashbacks between 1939 and 1992. Aliide has experienced the horrors of the Stalin era and the deportation of Estonians to Siberia, but she herself has to cope with the guilt of opportunism and even manslaughter. More…
Sofi Oksanen: Kun kyyhkyset katosivat [When the doves disappeared]
9 October 2012 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Kun kyyhkyset katosivat
[When the doves disappeared]
Helsinki: Like, 2012. 365 p.
ISBN 978-952-01078-19
€ 27.90, hardback
Four years after the huge national and international success of her third novel Puhdistus (Purge, 2008, now translated into 38 languages), Sofi Oksanen has published a new novel to the accompaniment of trumpets and drums – a launch cruise to Tallinn, Estonia, workshops and public readings. The Finnish film version of Puhdistus received its world premiere at the same time. Oksanen has earned her star status as a writer, but Kun kyyhkyset katosivat is not as good as its predecessor. The story of Estonian freedom fighter (‘Forest Brother’) Roland and his cousin Edgar, an opportunist who manoeuvres his way through the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Estonia from 1941 until the apparent liberalisation of the 1960s, is thin and fragmentary. The language and style are uneven and diffuse, while Edgar’s chameleon-like shifts of identity from pro-German sympathies through Siberia to complicity with the KGB deserve to be more carefully explored. While the book’s themes are unquestionably authentic and relevant, they don’t really blend together into a moving novel in the way that Puhdistus does.
Translated by David McDuff
Prix Femina for Sofi Oksanen
5 November 2010 | In the news
Sofi Oksanen’s novel Puhdistus (English translation, Purge, by Lola Rogers; French translation, also entitled Purge, by Sébastien Cagnoli), was awarded the French literature prize Prix Femina Étranger in early November.
The Prix Femina was founded by the editors of the magazine La Vie heureuse (nowadays Femina) in 1904 as a counterbalance to the Prix Goncourt and the male-dominated award system. The jury members of Prix Femina are women only – whereas the prize can be awarded to either gender.
Among earlier winners of the Prix Femina Étranger – awarded since 1985 for the best foreign novel – are Amos Oz, Joyce Carol Oates and Ian McEwan.
The rights of Oksanen’s novel have so far been sold to 36 countries; Purge has sold approximately half a million copies the world over. In France – where the book also won the Le Prix du Roman Fnac in June – four print runs have sold more than 70,000 copies.
French prize for Sofi Oksanen
26 August 2010 | In the news
In August the ninth Prix du Roman FNAC was awarded to Sofi Oksanen (born 1977) for her novel Puhdistus (English translation, by Lola Rogers: Purge; see a recent British review [Guardian, August 21] here), to be published in French (by Editions Stock) on August 25 under the title Purge. This is the first time FNAC – the largest bookshop chain in France – has awarded the prize to an author who doesn’t write in French.
The jury consists of 900 booksellers and representatives from the general public. They read 300 novels published in France this year, and the winner was chosen out of 30 finalists.
The Finnish production company Solar Films Inc. will transform Puhdistus into a film in 2012: the screenwriter is Marko Leino.
Once more: Sofi Oksanen’s novel wins a prize
10 December 2010 | In the news
Sofi Oksanen (born 1977) has received the Europe Book Prize, worth €10,000, for her novel Puhdistus (Purge, 2008). Chosen from a shortlist of eight works, the prize was awarded by the ex-chairman of the European Union Commission, Jacques Delors, in Brussels on 9 December.
The European Book Prize jury is made up of European journalists and correspondents and was chaired by the German film director Volker Schlöndorff. According to the jury, Puhdistus is ‘a brave and painful exploration into the traumas of the Estonian history’.
The prize was awarded this year for the fourth time. The author expressed her appreciation of the prize by saying Europeanness for her signifies freedom of speech, respect for human rights and the will of sustaining these fragile and easily damaged values.
Becoming father and daughter
31 December 1990 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
A father kidnaps his 10-year-old daughter and flees to the western extremity of Europe, to Ireland, to begin a new life under new names. In the following extract, the girl is in a state of shock after witnessing an event organised by a religious sect in which animals are driven over a cliff to their death. The year 2000 approaches, and with it clarification of the relationship between father and daughter. An extract from Olli Jalonen’s novel Isäksi ja tyttäreksi (‘Becoming father and daughter’). Introduction by Erkka Lehtola
He begins leading his daughter back the way they came, along the hillside and the lip of the precipice.
The blare of the Legion’s display carries far, till finally the voices are scrambled in the bluster of the wind. The electricity crackles in the loudspeakers, and the thundersheets rumble out to the audience. ‘Be silent!’ come the roars from the plat form: ‘And look at each other! Each is fearfully following his way, each is a venue of good and evil, each is inscribed with God’s name!’ More…
3 x Runeberg: poet, cake & prize
5 February 2014 | This 'n' that
J.L. Runeberg. Painting by Albert Edelfelt, 1893. WIkipedia
Today, the fifth of February, marks the birthday of the poet J.L. Runeberg (1804–1877), writer, among other things, of the words of Finnish national anthem.
Runeberg’s birthday is celebrated among the literary community by the award of the Runeberg Prize for fiction; the winner is announced in Runeberg’s house, in the town of Borgå/Porvoo.
Runeberg’s favourite. Photo: Ville Koistinen
Mrs Runeberg, a mother of seven and also a writer, is said to have baked ‘Runeberg’s cakes’ for her husband, and these cakes are still sold on 5 February. Read more – and even find a recipe for them – by clicking our story Let us eat cake!
The Runeberg Prize 2014, worth €10,000, went to Hannu Raittila and his novel Terminaali (‘Terminal’, Siltala).
Hannu Raittila. Photo: Laura Malmivaara
According to the members of the prize jury – the literary scholar Rita Paqvalen, the author Sari Peltoniemi and the critic and writer Merja Leppälahti – they were unanimous in their decision; however, the winner of the 2013 Finlandia Prize for Fiction, Jokapäiväinen elämämme (‘Our everyday lives’) by Riikka Pelo, was also seriously considered.
Read more about the 2014 Runeberg shortlist In the news.