Finland-Swedish Literature

[Eric]

We've already got a thread for literature in Swedish, and one for literature in Finnish. We've also got one for the regional literature of Ostrobothnia, written in Swedish. Ostrobothnia is too small to have had many authors translated into English; I created that thread merely to show that it is a vigorous region regarding literature in a minority language.

But Finland-Swedish Literature is a well-defined concept, which features all over the place, once you become familiar with what is written in Finland and Sweden. Take, for instance, this issue of the Swedish Book Review:

Swedish Book Review

That concentrates on what is being written right now. Neil Smith, who wrote the article, is in the process of moving the Norvik Press from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, to University College London. In his article here, published here, you will find a number of familiar names such as Monika Fagerholm and Kjell West?, both of whom have had one novel translated into English. Maria Antas' article there is also informative:

Swedish Book Review

A new name is Lars Sund (born 1953). He has written a suite of novels, an excerpt from one of which is to be found at:

Swedish Book Review

Another excerpt is from a trilogy by Ulla-Lena Lundberg (born 1947) from the ?land archipelago, where 95% of the speakers scattered over the islands are Swedish-speaking:

Swedish Book Review

Sabine Forsblom (born 1961) is a new name to me too. She comes from Borg? / Porvoo to the east of Helsinki:

Swedish Book Review

For the other excerpts, you have to buy the supplement. The subscriptions address for the Swedish Book Review will be changing this summer. I'll post it up once Neil Smith is established at University College London.

But there are older authors too.

G?sta ?gren (born 1936) had a volume of his poems, A Valley in the Midst of Violence, that appeared in English translation, translated by David McDuff, back in 1992:

The Scottish Poetry Library

David McDuff also translated an anthology of Finland-Swedish poetry, Ice Around Our Lips, which appeared in 1989. This contains poetry by Bertil Gripenberg, Arvid M?rne, Elmer Diktonius, Edith S?dergran, Gunnar Bj?rling, Rabbe Enckell, Solveig von Schoultz, Bo Carpelan, Claes Andersson and G?sta ?gren, who all belong to the poetry canon of Finland-Swedish literature:

Bloodaxe Books: Title Page > David McDuff: Ice Around Our Lips

Bo Carpelan (born 1926) wrote the novels Axel and Urwind, both of which have appeared in English with the Northwestern University Press in the United States:

BOOKSAMILLION.COM (BAMM.COM) - Search and Browse

Gunnar Bj?rling (1887-1960) has had a volume of his poems appear in the USA in Fredrik Herzberg's translation (2005):

Action Books - Catalog

Edith S?dergran (1892-1923) is perhaps the best-known Finland-Swedish poet of all. Various collections of her poetry have appeared in English, translated by Rika Lesser, Stina Katachadourian and David McDuff. See the Wikipedia:

Edith S?dergran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And finally Tove Jansson (1914-2001), whose work has been discussed here on the World Literature Forum quite a lot. Just the Wikipedia entry:

Tove Jansson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Eric]

Just to put the Finland-Swedes in a Finnish perspective, I would like to quote the following from the Finnish-language publishing house TEOS [in my rough translation]:

Teos and S?derstr?ms [a leading Finland-Swedish publishing house, based in Helsinki] have started a joint series of publications. In our country there is literature in two languages, and the fine publications that appear in the Swedish-language are not particularly well-known among Finnish-speakers, as they are translated relatively rarely into Finnish. Teos and S?derstr?ms want to give Finnish-speaking readers the opportunity to empathise with texts written originally in Swedish. Five such books will be published each year. The aim is that they will be published simultaneously in both Swedish and Finnish. This autumn, the following books will be published in this series:

Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo's new horror romance Andrej Krapl Had Five Knives;

Emma Juslin's well-received, temperamental second novel Frida and Frida which won the prize awarded by the S?derstr?m publishing house;

Stefan Nyman's Anna on-line, an anarchic and enjoyable novel for young people;

Annika Luther's Letter to the Outer Marches of the Land; and

Marianne K?cko's Kill Me, Mother! non-fiction book about her anorectic daughter.

In all, the Teos publishing house will be publishing a total of thirteen novels this coming autumn.

The original, for Iiris:

Teos ja S?derstr?ms aloittavat yhteisen julkaisusarjan. Maassamme on kaksikielinen kotimainen kirjallisuus, jonka upeaa ruotsinkielist? tuotantoa suomenkieliset eiv?t kovin hyvin tunne, koska sit? suomennetaan verrattain v?h?n. Teos ja S?derstr?ms tahtovat antaa suomenkielisille lukijoille mahdollisuuden el?yty? suomen kielell? alkujaan ruotsiksi kirjoitettuihin tarinoihin. Sarjassa julkaistaan viitisen kirjaa vuosittain. Tavoitteena on, ett? ne ilmestyisiv?t samaan aikaan suomeksi ja ruotsiksi. Ensi syksyn? sarjassa ilmestyv?t vuoden 2008 Runeberg-palkittu romaani, Hannele Mikaela Taivassalon uuskauhuromanttinen Viisi veist? Andrej Kraplilla, Emma Juslinin kiitetty, temperamenttinen toinen romaani Frida ja Frida ja S?derstr?msin romaanikilpailun voittaja, Stefan Nymanin kauhuromaani Anna on-line, anarkistisen hauska nuortenromaani, Annika Lutherin Kirje maan ??riin sek? Marianne K?ckon tytt?rens? anoreksiasta kirjoittama tietokirja, Tapa minut, ?iti!.

Kustannusosakeyhti? Teos julkaisee ensi syksyn? kolmetoista romaania

This is a significant development, as Finnish and Finland-Swedish literature sometimes lead parallel lives, not having much to do with one another.

 

[Eric]

I thought I'd revive this thread to say that there was a Finland-Swedish book event at the Helsinki Book Fair stretched over four days recently, financed by Schildts publishers. So Finland-Swedish literature is alive and kicking.

From Thursday 23rd October to Sunday 26th October, various authors presented their works, including poets Sanna Tahvanainen, Heidi von Wright, Lars Huld?n, Bo Carpelan, children's writer Irmelin Sandman-Lilius and fiction authors Robert ?sbacka and others. A total of about fifteen local authors - all taking in their native Swedish.

Full list of names here:

http://www.schildts.fi/user_data/doc/allman_litteratur/schildts_hfrsmassa08w.pdf

And to demonstrate how alive literature in the Swedish language is in Finland, here is the list of Finland-Swedish events literary at that same book fair, this time, promoted by the Finland-Swedish Literary Society. Unfortunately, only in Swedish:

Bokm?ssan

 

[Eric]

The Ny Tid Poetry Calendar 2009

Ny Tid is a weekly newspaper that started out as the organ of the more right-wing end of the Finnish Communist Party back in 1944, actually of the umbrella movement called the People's Democrats, which included Communists, left-wing Social-Democrats, and other fellow-travellers. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has evolved into becoming more of a cultural weekly. It is published in the Swedish language.

Within what is termed "Swedish Finland", i.e. the Swedish-speaking minority, Ny Tid has become something of an institution, and is even said to be read by the President.

This year, it has published a poetry calendar. The editor, Katarina G?ddn?s says at the front:

Poetry For the People!

Poetry is both essential and entirely unnecessary. Poetry may perhaps not change the world, but it can certainly change our way of thinking about our existence. We dreamt of more poetry in everyday life, more poetry in messy kitchens, on crowded notice-boards.So we decided to produce a poetry calendar. We wish that the year had more months, many more, because poetry in "Swedish Finland" is vital and strong. So we proudly present: twelve newly written poems, by twelve different poets, portraits of the authors by the photographer Charlotta Boucht and a claendar designed by Eva-Jo Hancock. I would dare to bet that you have never seen anything like it and that your days will never be the same again...

Katarina G?ddn?s / author and editor.

The poets will be unknown to most of you, but are Heidi von Wright, Bosse Hellsten, Stella Parland, Catharina Gripenberg, Oscar Rossi, Matilda S?dergran, Philip Teir, Thomas Brunell, Sanna Tahvanainen, Ralf Andtbacka, Peter Mickwitz, Carina Karlsson.

Tahvanianen and Karlsson come from the ?land archipelago, halfway between Sweden and Finland, the rest either from Ostrobothnia or southern Finland, where the remaining enclaves of Finland-Swedish life still exist. Heidi von Wright's name is pronounced [heydi fon vrickt] as she is Finland-Swedish, not German.

Puns and macaronic usage are difficult to translate. Take the poem for March, called "Promenade", by Stella Parland:

Promenade

Invasion av marsm?n
Marskalk Mannerheim
marsvin marsipan
marsupier och

Marsch ni vita jordgubbar, marsch!

Mars var sonen till Juno
og ein magisk blome,
eller kanskje Jupiter sj?lv

Marsala, Marsala,
Miassala in siciliano

tussilago i v?grenen

"Mars" is not only the Swedish for the plant and the god of war, but for the month of March. So all the words beginning with "mars-" have connotations. The Swedish word for strawberry is "jordgubbe", literally "earth-old-man"; Mannerheim was an old man and led the Whites. There is no connotation of old men in the English word for the fruit, Red or White. Although, curiously, the old-fashioned English word for marzipan is "marchpane". Why Parland writes two lines in nynorsk (the Norwegian language) is a mystery to me.

This is a typically complex Finland-Swedish poem, filled with punnets of punnery and quite incomprehensible jumps of context. Not at all easy to translate.

 

[Eric]

Those of you who read poetry, can read a few poems in English translation at the following parts of the Nordic Voices in Translation blogsite:

Catharina Gripenberg: http://nordicvoices.blogspot.com/2009/04/songs-of-ones-own.html

Heidi von Wright: http://nordicvoices.blogspot.com/2009/04/heidi-von-wright-minimalist-poet.html

Wava St?rmer: http://nordicvoices.blogspot.com/2009/03/four-poems-by-wava-sturmer.html

Bror R?nnholm: http://nordicvoices.blogspot.com/2009/04/bror-ronnholm-from-hollow-in-summer.html

Plus an international translation exchange anthology with poets from Kirklees (Yorkshire) and the Ostrobothnian province of Finland"

http://nordicvoices.blogspot.com/2009/03/interland.html

 

[Eric]

I've recently been discovering the poetry of Arvid M?rne (1876-1946). The Wikipedia gives rather an odd flora of articles about him in English, and the Wikipedia article is more of a bibliography than biography.

Do any of you Suecobuffs know whether there are substantial translations of his work into English? I can't find any by Googling. All I know off is several poems, translated by David McDuff, in an anthology called "Ice Around Our Lips".

What is pleasant and rewarding about his poetry is that it involves those elements of Finnish nature that are most precious to the Finland-Swedes who tend to be coastal dwellers, as opposed to the more inland-oriented Finnish-speakers: small often rocky islets, the sea, the sparse vegetation, changeable weather, storms, clouds, the hours of the day, the seasons of the year, etc.

M?rne is rather a gloomy poet, a former socially committed quasi-revolutionary, struggling for the working classes, who grew disillusioned and became somewhat withdrawn and pacifist. He wrote a lot of poetry and quite a few short novels. Plus literary essays, and ones touching on national identity.

 

[Eric]

Who's this Tove Jansson that everyone, their mothers, and Ursula K Le Guin keeps talking about?

 

[gumbowriters]

I don't have much idea about the Sweden-Finland literature, thanks you for such a lovely post Eric.

 

[john h]

Edith Sodergran is fantastic. I was just reading her poetry the other night. I've had a collection of her poetry that came out in English for some years and every time I pick it up I'm as impressed as I was the first time. It sounds like she had a pretty tragic life. But what a document she left behind in her poetry. The woman was a real Amazon.

 

[Eric]

Now that I have a Swedish public library only a bus ride away, I have once again begun to re-examine Finland-Swedish literature. The local library has plenty such books, many from this past decade.

It constantly fascinates me that this small minority of only about 6% of the population of Finland manages to keep on writing and publishing. This phenomenon is partly on account of some rich funds, partly because of the eagerness of succeeding generations of authors to write in Swedish, and partly because, at last, Swedish publishing houses are discovering more of them than before.

There may come a tipping point when the Finland-Swedes have to admit defeat, with following generations going gradually over to the majority language, Finnish, and those that don't want to assimilate emigrating to Sweden. But things are by no means so drastic yet.

I'm sure that most of the names of Finland-Swedes writing this past decade remain unknown in the UK and the USA, but poets writing in the 2000s include Eva-Stina Byggmästar, Agneta Enckell and Martin Enckell (sister and brother and descendants of the same family as Rabbe Enckell), Sanna Tahvanainen, and several others, and prose authors such as Johanna Holmström, Emma Juslin, Kira Nalin, Olof Granholm, Hannele Taivassalo, Lars Sund, Robert Åsbacka, Kjell Westö, and the Russian immigrant author who chose to write in Swedish, not Finnish, Zinaida Lind?n. Some of the above have indeed emigrated to Sweden, but still write with gusto about their roots. While Westö has stayed in the Finnish capital to document it in his novels. Nor should we forget the former naughty boy of Swedish-speaking Finland, Jörn Donner, now in his late 70s, who financed Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander" but is also author in his own right, recently having published his take on Ingmar Bergman.

That relatively neglected genre the short-story remains big in what is sometimes termed Svenskfinland (Swedish Finland in the sense of the language spoken in various regions). There have been Finland-Swedes writing short prose since the 1890s, and still today there are those, such as Susanne Ringell, who write prose poetry as well as many others who try their hand at short-stories proper.

I still find that there is often, but not always, a difference between what is written by, on the one hand, the descendants of farmers and fisherfolk in Ostrobothnia and in the ?land archipelago, and in Ekenäs and Borgå; and on the other hand, the descendants of rather well-off Helsingfors (aka Helsinki) families, some with noble background and an "af" or "von" in front of their surname. But both West? and Ringell are from that rare breed nowadays, Helsinki Finland-Swedes with working class roots, rather that what are mockingly called "finlandssvenska bättre folk" (Finland-Swedish Better Folk) whose old ladies used to dominate the capital by speaking Swedish loudly on the trams thus making the Finnish-speaking lower classes cower in a linguistic inferiority complex of their own making. That is a virtually extinct aspect of Finland-Swedishdom.

There's a lot going on in that tiny literary enclave, and I hope this continues for a good while to come.

 

[anthony innerd]

hi katarina
i sent you an email via nytid as i would like to be a member but do not know how.
i am living in vilehlmina and opening a kulture kafe with family.
nu studera jag - svenska b och har haft pluggar mycket hård innan ny år så att göra fråmsteg.
jag tycker om ordet men har en stark tron som en kristian också - det är jul och vill att möta min gränner och förklara - det god nyheter men här i södra lapland kan man känna ensam utan ens egen länd och språk.

var snälla och skicka mig email hur att veta mera på ny.tid
med bästa hälsingar i detta fest årstid
anthony och familj
victoria - sångerska
rory 14 --sjungar och el.guitar,fiola,keyboards och många mera
luke 9 ---bara nu i skugga av stor bröder
minsjälv---jag älskar dig kristian tillber och poetic ord

co kunliga kafe
storgatan 6, 91233 vilhelmina, sweden 0940 55253, 0730494025

 

[anthony innerd]

hi eric
jag kom från yorkshire i england.
kan du hjälpa mig tillhör med international translation exhange anthology poets from kirkless, Yorkshire

anthony
vilhelmina
lappland, sweden

 

[Eric]

Sorry, Anthony, I couldn't quite understand your message. But Finland-Swedish literature is rather interesting. So explain again what you want to know about it. Or did Katarina already reply?

 

[DWM]

I'm guessing that the reference is to the Interland international exchange anthology with poets from Yorkshire and Ostrobothnia?

 

[Eric]

Yes, DWM, I have the book and was born in Dewsbury myself, so the publication interests me. I was perfectly well aware that this was the publication referred to, but was rather surprised at the "hi katarina" and "hi eric" messages from someone who, as far as I know, had never posted here before. So I was eliciting a response. None has been forthcoming so far. Given the nature of the restaurant or café in Vilhelmina, the message could well have been written by someone who is dyslexic or similar, so I was keen to find out the exact nature of the signatory Anthony, without writing off the posting as spam. But as I've said, there has been no response so far, and I fear that people do exist who do write thread spoilers for kicks.

I'm hoping that more Interland-style projects get off the ground. Now that the Arts Council of England is cutting back on the large, expensive projects, maybe they will have more money for literary translations which cost peanuts compared with opera and some of the Tate Modern and Tate Britain prestige projects.

 

[DWM]

Thanks for clarifying, Eric.

My concern was that the poster appeared to be asking if it was possible to "join" the Interland group - as I don't have connections with it now, perhaps you could let us know if it is in fact possible? That way, if the poster visits the forum, he/she will have the necessary information.

 

[Eric]

I think we should move on to Finland-Swedish literature on this thread. Unless the Vilhelmina poster returns, we may have to conclude that his postings were a spoof. DWM may not be entirely familiar with this chatsite, as he posts rather sporadically, but there have been "professional" thread-spoilers at large. I don't mean people who wander onto another subject to have a good chat, but people who regularly write irrelevant or self-serving comments, often in lower case, so as to undermine the dialogue of the thread from which they are excluded by a lack of genuine interest. Sour-grapesists, in other words.

Finland-Swedish literature has interested me, in bouts and bursts, since the 1970s. I have never become a full-time devotee, having wandered through the groves of other literatures. But I recognise it as having a distinct profile, differing from literature written in Sweden, on account of a different history and different social life.

Whether or not Finnish finally dominates the Finnish literary scene, and Swedish withers away in Finland as an everyday language and a medium for literary endeavour, the Finland-Swedes have already made a disproportionately large contribution to the literature of Finland.

As I now live in Sweden, i.e. right next door, I try to follow developments in Svenskfinland, as it is oddly termed, having no precise geographical boundaries, and see that Finland-Swedish literature is not yet dead.

 

[DWM]

I'm currently adding Finland-Swedish (and Swedish) poetry translations to a new blog on an ongoing basis, if anyone is interested. No parallel texts, I'm sorry to say, Eric. Though if you have some F/S poetry translations you'd like to publish there, you are welcome.

 

[Eric]

I've noted the new blog. Don't worry about the parallel texts, I have some of the originals on my bookshelf. I get the feeling that "rip and ravage" Diktonius had something of Ted Hughes in him when he was writing about his jaguar, but at that stage Diktonius was less gloomy than the Yorkshire crag.

I notice that you have translated several poems by Björling and Diktonius whose titles are the names of other cultural figures. Is the selection deliberate on your part?

I may be handy if the various poets in the category "Finland-Swedish poetry" are separated out from one another typographically, if that is possible. I find that I am scrolling down one long document and sometimes miss the gap between one poet and the next. Is there any layout remedy for this? I ask because I know that you are very keen on getting layout things right. You can, of course, access the various poets individually from the column on the right of the page, and this does separate them out neatly.

For some reason I am rather partial to Mörne's poetry. I read quite a lot about a year back, and remember liking it. And Ågren's poetry is very effective with regard to imagery. Will this latter poet be available in book form?

 

[DWM]

The selection is the same as the Bloodaxe selection in Ice Around Our Lips. Yes, the "cultural heroes" aspect of the choice was deliberate, and also in some cases helped to link the different parts of the anthology.

I don't think there's much one can do about the scrolling, really - it's a blog, after all. As you suggest, the best way to access the different sections is via the panel on the right.

The Ågren poems were to have appeared together with the other two books in the trilogy (which I've also translated) in a Bloodaxe edition, but for some reason that never materialized. Neil Astley told me that the sales of my previous Ågren book (A Valley in the Midst of Violence) had not been sufficient to warrant such an investment on Bloodaxe's part (though as far as I know they were offered a translation grant and purchase guarantee by FILI).

By the way, the blog can also be accessed here.