Saturday 21 March 2009

Ny Tid & Kontur revisited

Issue 12-13 of the Finland-Swedish cultural weekly "Ny Tid" is a double one, plus 1/09 of the occasional insert or supplement "Kontur". There is an exceptional amount of literary material this time round.

Ny Tid

- Two items about the Swedish Nordic Council nominee Johan Jönson and his mammoth 800-page mixed genre work entitled Efter arbetsschema. Article by Lorna Bertram; review by poet Heidi von Wright.

- A review by Otso Harju of the first volume of Hjalmar Bergman's letters.

- An excerpt from Finland-Swede Kira Nalin's first novel Bultar som ett bläckfiskhjärta.

- An article by Claes Andersson entitled 'Navelskådning à la Norén', in effect a review of Lars Norén's En dramatikers dagbok.

- A review, entitled ' "Zur Judenfrage" - Randanmärkningar till ett filosemitiskt livsprojekt', of a book of essays by Mikael Enckell called Om konsten att älska skriften.

- A review by Kristina Rotkirch [pronounced: ROOT-cheerk] of Russian author Olga Slavnikova's prizewinning novel 2017.

- Irmelin Sandman Lilius writes an essay about King Arthur, Merlin and Guinevere.

- Emma Strömberg discusses a poetry forum on the internet.

- A review by Emelie Enckell of the poetry collection Muntliga dikter by Swedish author Andreas Björsten.

- Poems by Finland-Swede Torsten Pettersson.

- Two theatre reviews by Isabella Rothberg of the plays Blaue Frau by Mia Hafrén and Villans hemlighet by several women author-actors: Freja Appelgren, Kontur editor Malin Kivelä, Åsa Nybo and novelist Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo. The latter play is described as a "tvärkonstnärlig föreställning", and as Rothberg says, is full of absurd humour, mysterious women, with the smell of coffee all around. There is Gothic, Sylvia Plath and Jane Eyre among the associations raised.

- A debate article by regular contributor Trygve Söderling (who doubles up as editor of the Finland-Swedish literary periodical 'Nya Argus') about repressive legitimacy in the Finland-Swedish press and Merete Mazzarella's blog.

- A review by former editor, Peter Lodenius, of Czech author Jáchym Topol's new novel in Swedish translation Den gyllene huvudet.

Kontur

- Malin Kivelä discusses a new Swedish translation of Proust.

- An essay-article by Sven-Erik Klinkmann about death and Johnny Cash.

- Poetry by the Estonian author Elo Viiding in Peeter Puide's Swedish translation.

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