Finnish literature

Introduction

      the oral and written literature produced in Finland in the Finnish, Swedish, and, during the Middle Ages, Latin languages.

      The history of Finnish literature and that of Swedish literature are intertwined. From the mid-12th century until 1809, Finland was ruled by Sweden, and Swedish remained the language of the upper classes until the end of the 19th century, at which time a vigorous movement began to revive Finnish as a cultural medium. This article discusses works written in Finland both in the Swedish language (Finland-Swedish literature) and in the Finnish language. It also discusses works by Finnish writers in exile in Sweden.

From the Middle Ages to the 18th century

      Finnish folk poetry was rich, with a wide range of forms. The metre, a trochaic four-stress line, was well suited to the Finnish language and to the memorization of long passages. Most of the poems were epic sequences or short songs. The epics centred on mythical events or the deeds of a hero. Into this category fall an early poem about the creation of the world and poems on the quest of the sampo, the adventures of the warrior-adventurer Lemminkäinen, and the legend of the tragic hero Kullervo. In many, the central character is the shaman-hero Väinämöinen, regarded by some as mythical, by others as historical. These stories also formed part of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. The lyrics, many by women, dealt with everyday griefs and joys; many were love songs or described the moods of a solitary soul, and the setting was rural—a landscape of forests and lakes, with glimpses of a village community.

      In oral transmission many poems changed or became confused with one another. The oldest were mythological, dating from pagan times (and surviving in remoter areas until the 12th century). Many were of medieval origin and contained datable events and persons. The first scholar to pay serious attention to Finnish folk poetry was Henrik Gabriel Porthan in the mid-18th century, and systematic collection through transcription began in the second half of the 18th century. The best-known collector, Elias Lönnrot (Lönnrot, Elias), concluded that the epic poems could be presented as a continuous folk epic. He joined a number together with connective material of his own and imposed a unifying plot; the result was the Kalevala (final form 1849), which was based on folk material but in structure was Lönnrot's creation. Lönnrot also published a selection of the lyrics, Kanteletar (1840–41; Eng. trans. Kanteletar), and their influence and that of the Kalevala as a whole on the Finnish national consciousness, art, and culture have been immense. Today the Finnish Literature Society (Finnish: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, often referred to as SKS) houses one of the largest collections of oral tradition in the world, with millions of items.

      From the end of the 12th century, Finland had been a part of Sweden. Very little literature was created in Finland, however, during the pre-Reformation era. The earliest writer known by name is Jöns Budde, a monk at the Birgittine monastery in Naantali (Nådendal), whose work includes the translation of a number of Old Testament books into Swedish. Perhaps the most significant expression of Finland's literary culture of the medieval period is the religious songs in Latin in the collection Piae cantiones, printed in 1582 but in use much earlier.

      The founder of literary Finnish was the religious reformer Mikael Agricola, the first Lutheran bishop of Finland, who published a Finnish primer (c. 1543) and a translation of the New Testament from Greek into Finnish (1548). (The first Finnish translation of the whole Bible was published in 1642.) In the prefaces to his translations, Agricola showed familiarity with Finnish mythology as well as with foreign patterns of versification.

 Two of the most noteworthy Finnish poets of the 18th century—Jacob Frese and Frans Mikael Franzén (Franzén, Frans Mikael)—left their country of birth for Sweden. Frese regarded himself a refugee from an enemy-occupied Finland. He was a gentler and more intimate poet than such Swedish contemporaries as Johan Runius, and his lyrics and hymns contain some of the emotional pietism that were a feature of 18th-century thought. The best of Franzén's work was written prior to his emigration in 1811. His idylls of are full of pre-Romantic idealism drawn from German and English sources.

The 19th century

      After its separation from Sweden in 1809, Finland became an autonomous grand duchy of Russia. Its Swedish legal and social institutions remained intact, and Swedish continued to be its official language. The new political situation gave rise to calls for an independent Finnish culture. These first emerged among a group of intellectuals, the Turku (Åbo) Romantics, who stood ideologically close to the Uppsala Phosphorists.

Literature in Swedish

 Only in the 19th century did a strong Swedish-language literature develop in Finland. In the work of Johan Ludvig Runeberg (Runeberg, Johan Ludvig), the Finnish people and landscape first came to life in literature. His epic poems Elgskyttarne (1832; “The Moose Hunters”) and Hanna (1836), both in hexameter, won him a place in Swedish letters. With Elgskyttarne Runeberg laid the ground for the literary depictions of common people, a characteristic of Finnish literature ever since. He became Finland's national poet with his patriotic cycle of poems Fänrik Ståls sägner, 2 vol. (1848 and 1860; The Tales of Ensign Stål). It is his lyric poetry, however, that has best stood the test of time.

 After a devastating fire in Turku in 1827, the city's university moved to Helsinki, the grand duchy's new administrative centre. Much of the intellectual activity in the new university town was centred on the Lördagssällskapet (Saturday Society), a group of young men that counted among its members, in addition to Runeberg, Johan Vilhelm Snellman (Snellman, Johan Vilhelm), Zacharias Topelius (Topelius, Zacharias), and, as an occasional guest, Elias Lönnrot (Lönnrot, Elias). Although writing in Swedish, members of the Saturday Society were conscious of creating a culture and a literature with an identity separate from that of Sweden. Snellman, a disciple of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, developed ideas that emphasized the importance of a local and national culture. He decisively influenced the status of Finnish; it received official parity with Swedish in 1863. Topelius, the youngest member of the Saturday Society, wrote historical novels in the manner of Sir Walter Scott; he also wrote poems and children's stories. He is perhaps best remembered for Fältskärns berättelser (1853–67; The King's Ring and Surgeon's Stories), a romanticized account of 17th- and 18th-century Finnish and Swedish history. Topelius bestowed on the Finns a history of their own, while Lönnrot created the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala (final form 1849), by compiling folk poetry from Finland's oral tradition.

Literature in Finnish

      Although a number of talented poets wrote in Finnish in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was only with Aleksis Kivi (Kivi, Aleksis) that a genuine Finnish literature came into being. His Seitsemän veljestä (1870; Seven Brothers), with its unique mixture of dialogue and lyric and mythical elements, was the first Finnish novel. His plays (e.g., Nummisuutarit [1864; Heath Cobblers]) paved the way for Finnish-language drama; his poetry gained full appreciation only much later. Among his fellow poets were August Ahlqvist-Oksanen, Suonio (Julius Krohn), Kaarlo Kramsu, who wrote austere and powerful poetry, and J.H. Erkko, whose style was based on folk song.

      In 1872 Kaarlo Bergbom (Bergbom, Kaarlo) founded the Finnish National Theatre. The 1880s saw the formation of a group of liberal writers known as Nuori Suomi (Young Finland), who founded the paper Päivälehti (from 1904 Helsingin Sanomat). Among the group's members were Juhani Aho (Aho, Juhani), a master of the lyrical nature novel, and Arvid Järnefelt. Rautatie (1884; “The Railroad”), Aho's first novel, is generally regarded as the most important work of fiction after Kivi. Järnefelt attracted attention with Isänmaa (1893; “The Fatherland”), a novel of student life. In Vanhempieni romaani (1928–30; “The Novel of My Parents”), he produced a classic portrait of his parents, who—in particular his mother, Elizabeth Järnefelt—had played a significant part in Finland's cultural life.

 Influenced by Norwegian and French writers, the members of Nuori Suomi introduced realism and social criticism to Finland during the 1880s. But similar views were already being put forward by a remarkable dramatist, Minna Canth (Canth, Minna), the most genuine representative of the modern breakthrough in Finland. She was an early translator of Danish critic Georg Brandes; her translation of his influential lectures calling for realism in contemporary Scandinavian literature introduced Brandes to Finnish readers. In her plays (e.g., Työmiehen vaimo [1885: “The Labourer's Wife”]) and her short stories (e.g., Kauppa-Lopo [1889; “Peddler Lopo”]), Canth addressed the plight of women and the working class and criticized the church as the upholder of the status quo.

The 20th century

Finland-Swedish literature

Origins

      Toward the end of the 19th century, Finland's Swedish and Finnish literatures grew increasingly apart, and from the turn of the century it became customary to speak of literature written in Finland using the Swedish language—Finland-Swedish literature—as having its own distinct identity. In 1863 Finnish was given equal status with Swedish, and in 1906 parliamentary reform dismantled the old estate system and instituted universal suffrage, depriving with one stroke the Swedish-speaking elite of its dominant political position. A linguistic minority, keen on closing its ranks across class boundaries and creating a feeling of Swedish nationalism, was born. The ultimate aim was to construct, as one scholar put it, not “a little Sweden” in Finland but “a little Finland” in Swedish. Thus emerged the themes of loneliness and rootlessness, characteristic of Finland-Swedish literature ever since. Important writers of the transition period were Josef Julius Wecksell, a predecessor of Strindberg as an author of historical drama (Daniel Hjort, first performed 1862), and Karl August Tavaststjerna, who had extensive connections with the authors of “the modern breakthrough” (det moderne gennembrud (moderne gennembrud, det)) and is best known for his realistic novel Hårda tider (1891; “Hard Times”). Tavaststjerna also wrote poetry, and with his novel I förbund med döden (1893; “In Alliance with Death”) he contributed to European fin de siècle literature. He has been called the first Finland-Swedish writer.

      Early in the 20th century a group of prose writers known as Dagdrivarna (“Idlers”) emerged with a crisp, cynical, and analytical tone, in style and motif akin to the Swedes Hjalmar Söderberg and Bo Bergman. The greatest talent among the Idlers belonged to Runar Schildt, whose novellas and plays dealt with ethical and artistic problems (e.g., Häxskogen [1920; “Witchwood”]). Schildt also ventured beyond the boundaries of city and class to describe life in the Swedish-speaking countryside. Poets linked to this group include Arvid Mörne, whose work was devoted to the coastal skerries, and Bertel Gripenberg (Gripenberg, Bertel Johan Sebastian, Friherre), a master of traditional form whose ultraconservative politics rendered him controversial.

Lyric poetry

 The 1920s marked the most remarkable era in Finland-Swedish literature with the rise of modernism in lyric poetry. The trend was initiated by Edith Södergran (Södergran, Edith), whose visionary, dreamlike poems had a significant impact throughout Scandinavia. Elmer Diktonius, regarded by some as the most original of the modernists, is best known for artistically and socially radical poetry written early in his career. His prose (e.g., Janne Kubik: ett träsnitt i ord [1932; “Janne Kubik: A Woodcut in Words”]) only later received due recognition. Gunnar Björling, the Dadaist of Finland, expressed his philosophical idea of the relativity and incompleteness of everything in elliptic poems with highly idiosyncratic grammar and broken syntax. Both Diktonius and Björling turned later to more-serene nature poetry. Rabbe Enckell (Enckell, Rabbe) was a key theoretician of the modernist movement and Hagar Olsson its perceptive promoter and a bold literary critic. Ultra and Quosego were two short-lived periodicals established by the modernists.

      A style akin to the modernists'—with free rhythm, unrhymed lines, and powerful images—was adopted by a new generation of poets in the 1940s, among them Solveig von Schoultz, Ralf Parland, and Eva Wichman. Bo Carpelan was a poet and an accomplished prose writer, praised for the musicality of his language. Peter Sandelin, who started as a modernist, moved later toward social engagement with poems expressing ecological concerns. But during the 1960s a reaction set in. Poets rejected the modernists' aestheticism and individualism, and they introduced critical discussion of social issues. The most prominent representative of this socially committed poetry was Claes Andersson, while Lars Huldén, a prolific academician-poet and a master of many genres from cabaret texts to hymns, exemplified a poet who never conformed to popular trends. The lyric outburst of the 1970s brought forth a number of exciting poets, Tua Forsström among them, who at the turn of the 21st century ranked as one of the leading lyricists in Scandinavia. Musicality and rhythm, but also a touch of irony, are central to her poetic idiom. Agneta Enckell, who represented a younger generation, experimented with language, exploring its minutest components and thus creating what some have called “feminine language.” Henrika Ringbom, another younger poet with a distinct voice, won acclaim for the collection Den vita vinthunden (2001; “The White Greyhound”), its rich texture of metaphors derived from dreams, art, and film.

Prose

      After Tavaststjerna, readers and critics alike craved a broad Finland-Swedish novel with a panoramic view of contemporary society. Equally persistently, however, lyric poetry and short prose prevailed. Among prose writers, Tito Colliander treated themes of guilt and atonement from a Russian Orthodox standpoint; Oscar Parland, a psychiatrist, offered masterful depictions of life from a child's perspective; and Tove Jansson (Jansson, Tove) won international recognition for her imaginative portrayals of the fairy-tale realm of Moomintrolls. In the 1970s Christer Kihlman, Henrik Tikkanen, and Jörn Donner gained fame with their confessional novels, revealing often sordid details in the lives of the Finland-Swedish ruling elite, but Märta Tikkanen's breakthrough prose-poem Århundradets kärlekssaga (1978; The Love Story of the Century), with its feminist perspective, deconstructed their seemingly sincere confessions.

      Among dramatists, Walentin Chorell wrote heavily symbolic plays that were frequently staged in the 1950s but later fell into oblivion. Johan Bargum, a great stylist and author of numerous novels and short stories, scored a success with a play about the AIDS crisis, Finns det tigrar i Congo? (1990; “Are There Tigers in the Congo?”), cowritten with Bengt Ahlfors. Joakim Groth made a name for himself in the 1990s as a dramatist with works such as Härlig är jorden (1995; “It Is a Wonderful World”).

      In the 1980s and '90s Finland-Swedish literature remained a small minority literature, but, amid predictions of gloom, it witnessed a “boom” of prose. Ulla-Lena Lundberg came to prominence with her semi-documentary Åland trilogy, which charts life on the Åland Islands over 150 years; its style of narration changes from one volume to the next to reflect the styles typical of the different historical eras being described. Two novels by Lars Sund that centre on a woman from Ostrobothnia, a region in western Finland, and on her descendants use a self-reflexive narrator and show touches of magic realism; they toy in a postmodern manner with the genre conventions of the historical novel. Helsinki found its chronicler in Kjell Westö, who started as an experimental poet but later gained popularity with novels that recount a family's fate in the bilingual capital. With an ironic twist, Monika Fagerholm's novel Underbara kvinnor vid vatten (1994; Wonderful Women by the Water) contributed a feminist perspective and a quintessentially Finland-Swedish landscape—the archipelago—to Finland-Swedish prose.

Finnish-language literature

The early 20th century

      By the end of the 19th century, Finnish-language literature had caught up with the country's Swedish literature in volume and quality. While lyric poetry and an urban outlook, with a focus on the educated classes, came to characterize Finland-Swedish literature, Finnish writers favoured the novel, the countryside, and the common folk.

 During the early part of the 20th century, the major writers included Teuvo Pakkala, whose stories of childhood became classics, and Johannes Linnankoski (Linnankoski, Johannes), who wrote a well-knit novel of peasant life as well as the best-selling Laulu tulipunaisesta kukasta (1905; The Song of the Blood-Red Flower), describing the amatory adventures of a Finnish Don Juan. Aino Kallas's works had an Estonian setting, and her best were prose ballads, written in an archaic style, about illicit love: Barbara von Tisenhusen (1923), Reigin pappi (1926; Eros the Slayer), and Sudenmorsian (1928; The Wolf's Bride).

 Many writers continued the tradition of “folk portrayal” but in a more critical spirit; after civil war followed the country's independence in 1917, an attitude of self-criticism became general. A leading Finnish prose writer was Joel Lehtonen (Lehtonen, Joel), whose Putkinotko (1919–20) was a colourful, humorous, and bitterly critical study of the lives of the rural poor. His last novel, Henkien taistelu (1933; “Struggle of Souls”), sharply satirized contemporary conditions. In his important novel Alastalon salissa (1933; “In the Parlour at Alastalo”), Volter Kilpi (Kilpi, Volter) used interior monologue, long flashback episodes, and detailed description, spreading events of six hours over more than 900 pages. Kilpi was an exponent of the experimental novel; his interest in the problem of time and in the re-creation of the past linked him with such novelists as Marcel Proust and James Joyce. The stories of Heikki Toppila set people's lives against a background of superstition, and his writing was grimly effective. Frans Eemil Sillanpää (Sillanpää, Frans Eemil) viewed his characters from a biologist's standpoint: he considered them an integral part of their surroundings. This attitude is especially apparent in his most important novels, Hurskas kurjuus (1919; Meek Heritage) and Nuorena nukkunut (1931; The Maid Silja). He was the first Finnish writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (1939).

 Among poets, Eino Leino (Leino, Eino) was in a class by himself. The scope of his talent ranged from the visionary and mystical Helkavirsiä (1903–16; Whitsongs) to topical novels, plays, pamphlets, and critical journalism. He plumbed Finnish folk poetry for motifs, revived the old metres, and utilized the whole range of the Finnish language in his art. However, rather than herald a new era in Finnish poetry, Leino's work marked the culmination of the previous one, national Romanticism. Other notable poets of the period were Otto Manninen, a master of laconic compression and a brilliant translator, and Veikko Antero Koskenniemi, who was contemplative, pessimistic, and academic and followed Continental trends more closely.

 In the mid-1920s a group of young writers emerged called Tulenkantajat (“Torchbearers”), who took as their slogan “Open the windows to Europe!” Through them, Finns were introduced to free verse, exotic themes, and urban romanticism. The group's original ideals were realized in the early verse of Katri Vala; at first a prophet of sensual joys, she later turned to social criticism and socialism. One of the Torchbearers' leaders was the essayist Olavi Paavolainen, a brilliant travel writer and analyst of the times, who in Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana (1939; “As a Guest in the Third Reich”) expressed prophetic alarm at—but also his fascination with—the developments in Adolf Hitler's Germany. Paavolainen's last published work was a war diary, Synkkä yksinpuhelu (1946; “Gloomy Soliloquy”), a skeptical report of Finnish wartime politics with superb nature descriptions of eastern Karelia, the cradle of the Kalevala. The book was met with harsh criticism. Mika Waltari (Waltari, Mika)'s achievements were short stories and a series of historical novels. Sinuhe, egyptiläinen (1945; The Egyptian), set in ancient Egypt but reflective of postwar disillusionment, became an international success.

      Among the chief poets of the years between the world wars were Uuno Kailas and Kaarlo Sarkia, both of whom returned to classical ideals of poetry and traditional metres. The former wrote Uni ja kuolema (1931; “Sleep and Death”) and upheld a rigid moral code; the latter was a fastidious stylist and sensitive seeker after beauty. Aaro Hellaakoski and P. Mustapää (pseudonym of Martti Haavio) were recognized as major poets only after World War II; both broadened the traditional style, especially in rhythm.

      Leading prose writers included Pentti Haanpää and Toivo Pekkanen, two autodidacts. In his short stories and novels, Haanpää observed with sharp irony and a keen sense of social justice the life of the rural poor, revealing himself as a skillful stylist who frequently criticized the army and the church, two sacrosanct institutions in the newly independent Finland. Pekkanen portrayed the industrial worker; many regard his account of his own childhood in a working class family, Lapsuuteni (1953; My Childhood), as a masterpiece.

      In the years immediately before World War II, many literary trends were discernible: colourful romanticism, depth psychology, bitter social criticism. In 1936 a group of left-wing writers known as Kiila (“The Wedge”) was formed, most of their important work appearing after the war (e.g., Elvi Sinervo's novel Viljami Vaihdokas [1946]). Haanpää's work also expressed left-wing ideas, as did that of the period's most notable dramatist, Hella Wuolijoki, who collaborated in 1940 and 1941 with German playwright Bertolt Brecht in writing Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti (performed 1948; Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti).

Postwar poetry and prose

      For Finland, World War II meant two separate wars against the Soviet Union, the Russo-Finnish War (Winter War) of 1939–40 and the War of Continuation of 1941–44; during the latter, Finland was a cobelligerent of Germany. The unified national effort of the Winter War helped to heal old traumas, and a new cohesiveness between the two language groups as well as between different social classes emerged, only to be shattered again by the more controversial War of Continuation. In literature the war years marked a period of transition. The generation that began writing before or during the war suffered a crisis survived by few, among them the poets Hellaakoski, Mustapää, Aale Tynni, Viljo Kajava, and Arvo Turtiainen. A school of younger poets soon emerged whose work partook of the free rhythms, lack of rhyme, symbolic imagery, and unpoetic themes of modernism. They avoided political or religious commitment and shared an often skeptical outlook and an interest in problems of lyrical expression. The most prominent of the generation of poets active during the 1950s were Paavo Haavikko (Haavikko, Paavo), also a prose writer and author of experimental plays, and Eeva-Liisa Manner (Manner, Eeva Liisa), whose collection Tämä matka (1956; “This Journey”) signaled her adoption of modernism and who in her later works often exhibited a painful awareness of world events. Other noteworthy poets of the 1950s, a period rich in lyric poetry, include Helvi Juvonen, Tuomas Anhava (Anhava, Tuomas) (who was also a theoretician of modernism), and Lassi Nummi.

      A similar development took place, more slowly, in prose. In fiction a restrained, objective style became customary, as in the work of Eila Pennanen and Eeva Joenpelto; the latter attracted a wide readership with her Lohja tetralogy, a series of novels situated in her home region, Uusimaa. Antti Hyry also used the objective technique; in Kevättä ja syksyä (1958; “Spring and Autumn”), which depicted characters behavioristically, it resulted in effective prose. Other writers explored new paths, notably Veijo Meri (Meri, Veijo) in such grotesque, Chaplinesque war novels as Manillaköysi (1957; Manila Rope), and Marja-Liisa Vartio, who blended realism and fantasy. A more traditional narrative style was retained by Väinö Linna, whose novel Tuntemation sotilas (1954; The Unknown Soldier), a depiction of the War of Continuation, initially caused an uproar, only to become one of the most widely read novels in Finland. Its characters were for decades widely known by name in Finland, because they seemed to embody the archetypal qualities attributed to people from the country's various provinces. Linna's trilogy Täällä Pohjantähden alla (1959–62; Here Beneath the North Star) revised equally successfully Finns' interpretation of the Civil War of 1918.

The 1960s and beyond

      In the 1960s Finnish society underwent great structural changes: a welfare system along the Swedish model was developed, and the process of urbanization accelerated, with a sizable proportion of the population moving to cities and, later, also to Sweden. Toward the end of the decade, protests against the Vietnam War radicalized the young. In the arts the 1960s was a period of challenging old taboos. Poetry became overtly politicized before prose did. Poets such as Matti Rossi and Pentti Saaritsa, both strongly influenced by Latin American poetry, adopted a frank, urbane, conversational style and took a firm left-wing stand on social and political questions. The spirit of the 1960s found its quintessential articulation in Pentti Saarikoski's Mitä tapahtuu todella? (1962; “What Is Really Happening?”), a collage of fragments and quotations from political and classical texts, and in Väinö Kirstinä's Luonnollinen tanssi (1965; “Natural Dance”). Arvo Salo's Lapualaisooppera (1966; “The Lapua Opera”), a pacifist declaration and condemnation of the semifascist Lapualaisliike (“Lapua Movement”) of the 1930s, also exemplified the cultural climate of the 1960s. The socially critical pamphlet emerged as a favoured genre. Paavo Rintala, a prolific writer, cultivated the documentary novel, frequently addressing issues related to World War II. In his later works he used history as a filter through which to assess contemporary society as well as his own place in it (e.g., Faustus [1996]). A writer who took a somewhat different path was Pentti Holappa, a political columnist and poet, praised for the formal mastery of his diction. He introduced the French nouveau roman ( New Novel) to Finland.

      Finland's development during the following decades moved between opposites: the party-loyal politicized culture of the 1970s, an era that witnessed an oil crisis and economic downturn, yielded to the prosperous and self-centred '80s. In the 1990s Finland suffered a serious economic setback, with its unemployment figures higher than those recorded in the 1930s during the Great Depression. The nation's social fabric did not escape unscathed.

      The great novel of the 1970s was Hannu Salama's Siinä näkijä missä tekijä (1972; “Where There's a Crime There's a Witness”), which explored a communist resistance movement during the War of Continuation. Salama had made literary history already with an earlier novel, Juhannustanssit (1964; “Midsummer Dance”), for which he was charged with blasphemy; his prison sentence was subsequently overturned by the country's president. Many prose writers of the '70s cultivated the regional novel, including Heikki Turunen, with his realistic depictions of northern Karelia, and Antti Tuuri of Ostrobothnia, with an unemotional, modernistic style. Eeva Kilpi, also an accomplished poet, became best known for her autobiographical novels about Karelian evacuees after World War II. Leena Krohn—a socially active writer, deeply concerned with the ethical dimensions of literature—depicted the world from the perspective of insects in her novel Tainaron (1985; Tainaron: Mail from Another City), written in epistolary form. Matti Pulkkinen's Romaanihenkilön kuolema (1985; “The Death of a Fictional Character”), a postmodern novel that probes the possibilities of literary expression, caused a stir for its seemingly reactionary political views. Olli Jalonen and Annika Idström focused on the darker aspects of contemporary life. Jalonen's Hotelli eläville (1983; “Hotel for the Living”) offers a dystopic view of modern society, while Idström's Veljeni Sebastian (1985; My Brother Sebastian) explores the forces of evil through dysfunctional family relationships. Rosa Liksom (pseudonym of Anni Ylävaara) is a master of short prose who offers snapshots, usually rather grim ones, of the lives of social outsiders and eccentrics—a loner in Lapland or a drug addict in Helsinki—in language attuned to each environment. Whether her works use a dialect from northern Finland or urban Helsinki slang, they always include a robust helping of absurd humour. Other contemporary writers of note include Markku Envall, noted for his aphorisms, and Sirkka Turkka, who in her poetry addresses the fundamental issues of existence in an idiom that freely mixes the high and the low. Other prominent prose writers at the turn of the 21st century included Hannu Mäkelä, Hannu Raittila, Mari Mörö, and Irja Rane.

Kai L.K. Laitinen Virpi Zuck

Additional Reading

Surveys of the literature of Finland include Jaakko Ahokas, A History of Finnish Literature (1973); Kai Laitinen, Literature of Finland: In Brief, 3rd ed., trans. from Finnish (2001); George C. Schoolfield (ed.), A History of Finland's Literature (1998); and Yrjö Varpio, Land of the North Star: An Introduction to Finnish Literature and Culture (1999; originally published in Finnish, 1999). Anthologies of Finland-Swedish and Finnish texts include Kai Laitinen et al. (eds.), Modern Nordic Plays: Finland (1973); George C. Schoolfield (compiler), Swedo-Finnish Short Stories (1975); Matti Kuusi, Keith Bosley, and Michael Branch (eds.), Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic: An Anthology in Finnish and English (1977); Richard Dauenhauer and Philip Binham (eds.), Snow in May: An Anthology of Finnish Writing, 1945–1972 (1978); Anne Fried (ed. and trans.), Thank You for These Illusions: Poems by Finnish Women Writers (1981); Ingrid Väänänen-Jensen (Inkeri Väänänen-Jensen) and K. Börje Vähämäki (trans.), Finnish Short Stories, 3rd ed. (2000); David McDuff (trans. and ed.), Ice Around Our Lips: Finland-Swedish Poetry (1989); Kirsti Simonsuuri (ed. and trans.), Enchanting Beasts: An Anthology of Modern Women Poets in Finland (1990); Bo Carpelan, Veijo Meri, and Matti Suurpää (eds.), A Way to Measure Time: Contemporary Finnish Literature (1992); Hildi Hawkins and Soila Lehtonen (eds.), On the Border: New Writing from Finland (1995); S.E. Wilmer (ed.), Portraits of Courage: Plays by Finnish Women (1997); and Keith Bosley (ed. and trans.), Skating on the Sea: Poetry from Finland (1997).Virpi Zuck Ed.

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