Why has it taken me this long to find Lena Andersson? The way she writes how people – especially women – behave, think and feel is extraordinary. I felt seen, and it was not comfortable. I think I know people…
Blog Archives
Human behaviour: a study
Tagged with: August Prize, books, Finnish, Lena Andersson, Pan Macmillan, Sanna Manninen, Sarah Death, Saskia Vogel, Siltala, Studie i mänskligt beteende, Swedish, Translation, Tutkielma inhimillisestä käyttäytymisestä
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
The love story of the century
Three years shy of its fiftieth anniversary, this book still bites. Märta Tikkanen’s Århundradets kärlekssaga came out with S&S in 1978. I read Eila Pennanen’s Finnish translation, Vuosisadan rakkaustarina published by Tammi in the same year. In English, Stina Katchadourian’s…
Tagged with: books, Deep Vellum, Eila Pennanen, Finnish, Märta Tikkanen, Poetry, Stina Katchadourian, Swedish, Translation
Posted in books
Posted in books
Details
This book has been winning awards ever since it was published in Sweden last year, and today it’s out in English. I read the Finnish translation. My five-year plan to learn Swedish well enough to be “civilized” (not a juntti,…
Tagged with: books, Detjalerna, Finnish, Ia Genberg, Jaana Nikula, Kia Josefsson, Swedish, The Details, Translation, Yksityiskohdat
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
The Polyglot Lovers
Is this a Marmite book? Or maybe a sour-plum book, given the colour of the cover. My mum spent a large chunk of her childhood in Hong Kong, so she loves them, but they’re too strong for me. My mum…
Tagged with: And Other Stories, Lina Wolff, Saskia Vogel, Sweden, Swedish, The Polyglot Lovers, Translation, writing
Posted in books, gender, international, translation
Posted in books, gender, international, translation
What we owe
As an immigrant to a Nordic country under very different circumstances, I devoured this. I’m vastly more privileged – I am not a political refugee, although my grandparents and great uncle were, in their day. But the otherness and sameness…
Tagged with: books, Elizabeth Jane Clark Wessel, Golnaz Hashemazeh Bonde, Iran, Sweden, Swedish, Translation, What we Owe
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Maresi’s Power
Maresi is home from the abbey. She has left her sisters behind. She has left the horror of death behind too, it seems. It isn’t easy coming home. The journey is hard, and long. And when she gets there, the…
Tagged with: Annie Prime, books, Dublin Literary Award, Finland, Finnish, Maresi, Maresi Red Mantle, Maria Kyrö, Maria Turtschaninoff, Swedish, Translation, YA
Posted in books, gender, translation
Posted in books, gender, translation
Oh, to be in Finland, now December’s there
It’s too warm. It should be colder – a lot colder. It’s unseasonable. It’s beautiful, delightful, but it all feels wrong. It’s just all a bit too much, not cosy enough, not delicate enough, perhaps? Things should be the same,…
Tagged with: Christmas Carols, Finland, Finnish, Karl Collan, Poetry, Robert Browning, Swedish, Sylvian joululaulu, Sylvias hälsning från Sicilien, Translation, Zachris Topelius
Posted in Christmas, music, poetry, translation
Posted in Christmas, music, poetry, translation
The Emperor of Portugallia
Once upon a time, a hundred years and more ago, there was an ordinary man in an ordinary village, who led a really rather ordinary life. He worked hard, but nothing really excited him; he wasn’t very happy, but he…
Tagged with: books, Norvik Press, Peter Graves, Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish, The Emperor of Portugallia, Translation
Posted in books, literature, translation
Posted in books, literature, translation
Mårbacka
As Finland’s centenary drew ever closer, I realised I had been neglecting her western neighbour in favour of the eastern one, which also has a big anniversary year. Selma Lagerlöf’s Mårbacka, published in the 1920s, seemed a good place to…
Tagged with: books, Mårbacka, Nobel Prize for Literature, Sarah Death, Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish, Translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Finland 100: Edith Södergran
It is spring. The earth is bare, the snow is melting. The nights are cold, but the sun is getting stronger, the days are getting longer, a lot longer. Takatalvi (“back-winter” – the reverse of an Indian summer) might strike at…
Tagged with: Aale Tynni, David Barrett, Edith Södergran, Finland, Finland 100, Pentti Saaritsa, Poetry, Swedish, Uuno Kaila
Posted in books, Finland 100, poetry, translation
Posted in books, Finland 100, poetry, translation
found in translation 