Leaving everything behind is not always a free choice – this isn’t the year of the hare, the open road doesn’t necessarily lead to freedom. When hunger and death drive you out of your home in the depths of winter, you might…
Leaving everything behind is not always a free choice – this isn’t the year of the hare, the open road doesn’t necessarily lead to freedom. When hunger and death drive you out of your home in the depths of winter, you might…
Sometimes – especially in January? – it’s all too much, and you just want to get away from it all. Quit the job, leave your partner and home behind, and escape. Just head north and live in the forest, from…
This is one of the most beloved carols in the Nordic countries, but the tune is from Central Europe and it has travelled across the Atlantic in English translations. So why haven’t you heard of it yet? Maybe it’s because…
Finland is 99 today, and counting. Independence Day today marks the start of the centenary year. The celebrations really kick off with the New Year – including Book Finland 2017 which celebrates something Finns do a lot of – reading. The average Finn borrows…
Travel to a world like ours, but different. Where you have to work to survive, but if there is the slightest suspicion that you’re not in your right mind, they’ll take you away, isolate you to stop the ‘disease’ spreading,…
Good things come to those who wait. I’m not the only one who has been waiting for the next volume of the Red Abbey trilogy to be published. Luckily Marja Kyrö’s Finnish translation of Maria Turtschaninoff’s Naondel came out with…
Tove Jansson was born 102 years ago today. Her letters were published in the original Swedish for her centenary, and you can read extracts in English translation by David McDuff at the Books from Finland archive. They are a treasure…
When you’ve got a Man Booker International winner (Marlon James) on your books, you could sit back and relax. Or you could find the next big thing before it happens. That’s what Oneworld has done, buying the world English rights…
Finland has 1 lake for every 26 or so people, 187 888 in total, and most have marvellous names which look unpronouncable or untranslatable to a non-Finnish speaker. The rather fabulous designers Aamu Song and Johan Olin of http://www.com-pa-ny.com have put some answers on postcard:…