A list led me to this one. Mia Spanberg’s 7 contemporary Finnish novels on Electric Literature, to be precise. It’s translated into English by the author herself, Cristina Sandu, who’s also translated Adichie and Rooney into Finnish.
At first, I wished I’d found the Union of Synchronized Swimmers a bit earlier. Searching for a book about sport to close the Helsinki Library reading challenge, instead of Tom Daley’s Coming up for Air, I might have gone for this. But you’d learn much more about Olympic aquatics from the lovely Daley. The women in the USS do swim and train together, but only in between the tales of what they did next.
That’s where it gets interesting.
Vesileikit, water games, is the Finnish title. Yes, it’s playful, and Spiderman is in there. But the six stories hit home. If you’ve moved anywhere, if you’ve had to learn Finnish as an adult, if you’ve ever felt the need to hide your first language or get away from the people who speak it, the USS will resonate. You’ll want to know where those women were before, why they got out from behind the Iron Curtain, and now the curtain’s up, what’s stopping them going back.
Their stories are so short, and I sprinted through them so fast, the book was over almost before it began. I won’t let Sandu’s next novel pass me by – as soon as she’s written it, I’ll be ready to dive in.
Translator, editor, writer, reader
found in translation 
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