Ny Tid

If you want to keep abreast of cultural events in what is termed "Svenskfinland", i.e. the areas of Finland where Swedish is still spoken as a first language, the magazine Ny Tid still exists. I say "still" because it first appeared back in 1944, when it was a mouthpiece for left-wing politics.

Nowadays, it is much more focused on the arts. The latest issue that I have received through the post is 10/2009. This contains articles on, for instance, the sculptor Angela Oker-Blom, the bilingual Viirus theatre group, a review of the Swedish translation of Irène Némirovsky's Châleur du sang, a review of Charlotte Svensson's book Pli på pojkar, which discusses the role of men and masculine role models in children's literature, and other items from Sweden.

Every now and again, Ny Tid publishes a supplement entitled Kontur which is wholly devoted to literature as such. The Finland-Swedish publishing houses such as Schildts and Söderströms advertise new Finland-Swedish books there, and articles vary from ones about Finland-Swedish literature to ones about, for instance, Doris Lessing or a review of Le Clézio. In the latest issue, there are a number of poems by the Estonian poet Elo Viiding in Peeter Puide's Swedish translation.

Another interesting occasional supplement is Ikaros, which contains academic articles by people attached to the university Åbo Akademi. These supplements tend to have a wide range of themes from psychology to philosophy, art to science.

Specifically literary articles in the main Ny Tid paper over the past few months have included a large double one about Victoria Benedictsson; a review of Merete Mazzarella's "essäroman"about Zacharias Topelius Ingen saknad, ingen sorg; poems by Claes Andersson; a review of Robert Åsbacka's latest novel Orgelbyggaren.

Their website is at: http://www.nytid.fi/start/