Search results for "sofi oksanen/feed/www.booksfromfinland.fi/2012/04/2010/10/riikka-pulkkinen-totta-true"
Kirja muuttuvassa tietoympäristössä [The book in a changing information environment]
21 August 2014 | Mini reviews, Reviews
Toim. [Ed. by] Markku Löytönen, Tommi Inkinen, Anne Rutanen
Helsinki: Suomen tietokirjailijat ry. [The Finnish Association of Non-Fiction Writers], 195 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-67356-3-4
paperback; available also online:
http://www.suomentietokirjailijat.fi/jasenyys/julkaisut/kirja-muuttuvassa-tietoymparisto/
In the Western world the experience of reading is undergoing a critical change. There is even talk of a third information revolution. Books are increasingly acquiring electronic form, and the future of the printed book is being called into question. Kirja muuttuvassa tietoympäristössä contains the considered opinions of 18 experts on what is taking place in the field of non-fiction, and gives an overview of the literature on the current situation, which is seen from the point of view of the bookstore, the library, the author and the publisher. There is a discussion of intellectual property issues, developments in technology, and changes in the use of teaching materials, language, and reading habits. Finland is a leading country in both literacy and reading. The number of books has slowly declined in recent years, but it seems that the country’s youth has maintained an interest in books, and in fiction in particular. Although printed reference works of the encyclopedia type have given way to the information provided by the Internet, it is likely that literature and reading will preserve their status as a part of human culture.
Translated by David McDuff
Self-made man
1 April 2009 | Extracts, Non-fiction
On camelback: in the exotic part of Veijo Rönkkönen’s concrete cosmos there are animals and palm trees, side by side with the living plants of the northerly latitudes. - Photo, left: Veijo Rönkkönen; right: Veli Granö.
Extracts and photographs from Veijo Rönkkösen todellinen elämä / The real life of Veijo Rönkkönen (Maahenki, 2007. Translation: Kirsti Nurmela-Knox)
Veijo Rönkkönen (born 1944) has lived all his life on an isolated, small farm in eastern Finland, Parikkala, less than a kilometre from the Russian border, where he has quietly built a garden inhabited by nearly five hundred human figures made of concrete. Entrance is free.
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.
You thought Finnish was weird?
9 April 2015 | This 'n' that
You thought Finnish was weird?
Just listen to it get a whole lot weirder…
Ever since she burst on to our computer screens a year ago, we’ve been fans of Smokahontas, also known as Sara Forsberg.
Then aged 19, Forsberg shot to fame with her YouTube video What Languages Sound Like to Foreigners, in which she demonstrated a mastery of fluent gibberish in 14 languages including Japanese, estuarine English, French, Italian, Arabic…. She followed this up with One Girl, 14 Genres, where she bent her considerable talents for mimicry to performances in fourteen musical genres, from R ‘n’ B to musical, from traditional Indian to hipster indie.
An appearance on the Ellen de Generes show, and much media attention, followed, and Forsberg moved to California to pursue her career… where, one rainy day, thinking of home, she turned her attention to the Finnish language.
The result is Learn Finnish with Sara, a hilarious exploration of some of the sillier aspects of Finnish. It’s one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn, says Forsberg, and she goes on to prove it with some wacky examples. Vihdoin vihdoin vihdoin means ‘I finally whipped myself with boughs of silver birch; for Kokko, kokoo koko kokko kokoon, you’ll just have to watch the video. Not to mention hurskastelevaisehkollaismaiselllisuuksissaankohan hän toimii…
We’re predicting a big career. In whatever language.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPr-fGm8l9k
At the Fluctuating Reality Club
30 March 2007 | Authors, Reviews
Leena Krohn. Photo: Mikael Böök / Teos
For Leena Krohn, compromise doesn’t seem to be an option. Although the novel Mehiläispaviljonki (‘The bee pavilion. A story about swarms’, Teos, 2006) is her 26th book, her uncompromising approach doesn’t show the slightest sign of relaxing.
Once again, Krohn (born 1947) spreads before the reader an array of fragments of reported realities, which crisscross the boundaries of imagination and challenge the whole traditional conception of the world.
Since the short-story collection Donna Quijote ja muita kaupunkilaisia (1983; English translation: Dona Quixote and Other Citizens, 1995), Krohn has moved more towards the role of thinker and polemicist than ordinary storyteller. In her work in the 1980s and 1990s, she developed a unique, highly personal hybrid literary form, which combines the elements of fiction and essay. Krohn’s attention has focussed on human consciousness, ecology and moral and social questions. Her work has been translated into 12 languages; she received the Finlandia Prize for Literature for her work Matemaattisia olioita tai jaettuja unia (‘Mathematical beings or shared dreams’, 1992). More…
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…
Art or politics?
16 February 2012 | This 'n' that
You’re going about your business in Helsinki Railway Station on a cold winter’s day — waiting for your train, buying tickets or newspapers or just taking short-cut through the building to keep warm – when suddenly the bloke next to you bursts into song. And not just him: along with a couple of dozen others, he makes the air ring with the patriotic song Finlandia, sung in harmony and perfectly in tune. (The video can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO63xt2jWtc) More…
Perfect thing
31 December 2000 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Extracts from the novel Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi (‘Not before sundown’, Tammi, 2000). Interview and introduction by Soila Lehtonen
A youngster is asleep on the asphalt in the backyard, near the dustbins. In the dark I can only make out a black shape among the shadows.
I creep closer and reach out my hand. The figure clearly hears me coming, weakly raises its head from the crouching position for a moment, opens its eyes, and I can finally make out what it is.
It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I know straight away that I want it. 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.
Indifference under the axe
9 March 2012 | Essays, Non-fiction
In the forest: an illustration by Leena Krohn for her book, Sfinksi vai robotti (Sphinx or robot, 1999)
The original virtual reality resides within ourselves, in our brains; the virtual reality of the Internet is but a simulation. In this essay, Leena Krohn takes a look at the ‘shared dreams’ of literature – a virtual, open cosmos, accessible to anyone, without a password
How can we see what does not yet exist? Literature – specifically the genre termed science fiction or fantasy literature, or sometimes magic realism – is a tool we can use to disperse or make holes in the mists that obscure our vision of the future.
A book is a harbinger of things to come. Sometimes it predicts future events; even more often it serves as a warning. Many of the direst visions of science fiction have already come true. Big Brother and the Ministry of Truth are watching over even greater territories than in Orwell’s Oceania of 1984. More…
Patsy, the artist of the lumber camps
31 December 1984 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
A short story from Atomintutkija ja muita juttuja (1950). Introduction by Aarne Kinnunen
Deep in the wilds, where the only sound is the sad, primeval sighing of the forest, it is easy to succumb to a mood of boredom and melancholy. It may sometimes occur to you that in such a place you are wasting your life. Real life goes on elsewhere, in places with more people, more signs of human activity, more light, more gaiety…
You fell a tree, severing a string of that mighty instrument, the forest. You saw it into logs, you strip off the bark: it all seems dull and pointless. Sometimes the rain decides to go on for days: the trees have streaming colds, droplets hang from every needle-tip. You make for the shelter of a lumber camp. But the low-roofed rest-hut, deep in the forest, looks a dreary place, the well-known faces are so dull, the talk so futile. You feel you know in advance what each man is going to say. And the food, too, is just the same as usual, the same old rubbishy mush. The sight of the pot, with its blackened sides, gives no pleasure: you know all too well what is in it. And those grubby playing-cards, how disgusting! The mere sight of them is enough to make you feel defiled… More…
The honey of the bee
30 June 2005 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
A short story from the collection Mitä sähkö on (‘What electricity is’ WSOY, 2004). Introduction by Jarmo Papinniemi
Five days before I was born my grandfather reached sixty-six. He’d always been old. The first image I have of him gleams like a knife on sunny spring-time snow: he was pulling me on my sledge over hard frost under a bright glaring-blue sky. In the Winter War a squadron of bombers had flown through the same blue sky on their way to Vaasa; the boys leapt into the ditches for cover, as if the enemy planes could be bothered to waste their bombs on a couple of kids. Be bothered? Wrong: kids were always the most important targets.
Now it’s summer, August, and I’m sitting on the grassy, mossy face of the earth, which is slowly warming in a sun that’s accumulated a leaden shadiness. I’m sitting on my grandfather’s land. It’s the time when the drying machines buzz. Even with eyes shut, you can sense the corn dust glittering in the sun. Even with eyes shut, you can take in the smell of the barn’s old wood, the sticky fragrance of the blackcurrants barrelled on its floor, the tins of coffee and the china dishes on the shelves, and the empty grain bins; there’s the cupboard Kalle made, with its board sides and veneered door, and the dust-covered trunk that was going to accompany my grandfather to another continent. The ticket was already hooked, but Grandfather’s world remained here for good. When Easter comes we’ll gather the useless junk out into the yard and burn it; Grandfather’s travel chest will rise skywards. Grandfather stands in the barn entrance, leaning on the doorpost. He’s dead. Over all lies a heavy overbearing sun. Beyond the field the river’s flowing silently in its deep channel. At night time its dark and warm. More…
Dinner with Marie
30 June 2008 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Extracts from the novel Marie (WSOY, 2008). Introduction by Tuomas Juntunen
For once, Marie decided to plan a dinner without the same old roast beef, boiled potatoes, peas, red wine and berry kissel. And particularly no game. The thought of rabbit reminded her of the hunting trip to Porpakka, the hounds puking up rabbit skins onto the parquet floor, the smell of singed birds, the feathers that turned up even weeks later in a corner of the kitchen, the buckshot in the goose that broke her tooth. Mind you, she had to admit that brown sauce was quite good, especially as an aspic. She had tasted a spoonful once the morning after it was made, when Martta had gone out to buy milk and Marja was cleaning the drawing room, and then Martta had come back quite suddenly, and Marie had panicked and swallowed it the wrong way and had a fit of coughing. ‘Good heavens,’ Martta had said, ‘what’s the matter? I just came back to get my purse. I forgot it on the sideboard.’
The true reason for the plan was that she wanted to show them what a real French formal dinner was like, how much better it was. She planned the menu secretly for months, first in her mind, then in writing, at her bedroom dressing table – the only place she had to herself, although the door wouldn’t lock – at first on wrapping paper, which she later burnt in the tiled stove in the dining room when no one was home. More…
The Schoolmaster’s bicycle trip
30 June 2005 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
A short story from the collection Heta Rahko korkeassa iässä (‘Heta Rahko at a great age’, Otava, 1947). Introduction by Vesa Karonen
He was an old teacher, retired, mostly known as ‘the Schoolmaster’ in this small town. It was common knowledge that he’d always been a keen gymnast and sportsman, and after retirement he began pursuing his favourite pastimes in earnest. Evidently he revelled in moving about, like a baby on the crawl, or a feisty youth. He was a man with no personal ties, with no one to patronise or distract him.
‘You grow no wiser, even with age,’ the small-town folk kept sighing. In response to one of these groans, Porki the factory owner said what they thought was almost blasphemy:
‘When did old age ever produce any wisdom? It’s always demolished any little there was….’
And meanwhile, covertly envious, he watched the youthful-looking Schoolmaster striding along his path, lean, sinewy, stern-faced, his tuft of beard only reluctantly thinning and greying. Well, there was a person who’d realised life was motion – and believed it! But Porki and the other bigwigs in the town grew bloated and obese, huffed and puffed, and yawned. More…