Interpretation Prize

 I'm pleased and honoured that, together with my fellow translator Gisela Kosubek, I've been awarded the Swedish Academy's Interpretation Prize (Tolkningspris).

Acceptance Speech

Here's my acceptance speech.

The Finnish State International Translator's Prize is an award that I never expected to receive, and it means a great deal to me. I would like to thank everyone who recommended me for it.

Many years ago I visited Finland for the first time, as a young Edinburgh University student of Russian: it was July 1966, and I was travelling along the Baltic by ship, with some friends, on the way to the Soviet Union. Disembarking in Finland for a few all-too brief hours, my first impressions were of the city of Helsinki, but what I remember most of all were the light, stillness and calm of the late summer evening that greeted me as I walked up from the harbour. It was a calm that I hadn't experienced in any other city I'd been to, and I remember wondering where all the people were, for at that particular time of the evening there was almost no one about. I didn’t know it then, but in the years to come I would make many more visits to Finland and meet many people there, both in life and in books.

I've spent a large part of my life studying and translating, for the most part, the literature of three languages: Russian, Swedish and Finnish (I’ve translated poetry and fiction from other Northern languages, including Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic, but the three languages I mention are the ones that have held the most significance for me). The choice may at first sight seem strange, yet if one looks at the map it does makes sense, as Russia, Sweden and Finland are close neighbours, and have a common, if not always harmonious, history – and that is the context in which I discovered them.

Although the three languages – Russian, Swedish and Finnish – are structurally and lexically quite different from one another, my university study of Russian and Russian literature (which I pursued to doctorate level) was accompanied by a study of German. This led me to learn the Nordic languages, including Icelandic at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, and then some years later, with the encouragement of the Finnish Literature Information Centre – which is now called FILI – Finnish, first under Hannele Branch at London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies, and later at the University of Helsinki.

In the late nineteenth century and during the early twentieth century it was not uncommon for educated people in North-Eastern Europe to speak, read and understand all three of my chosen languages, although nowadays the unlikeness of Russian, Swedish and Finnish is thought to make them mutually exclusive. That was not the case in the past, and the change of attitude may be due at least in part to political and socio-historical factors.

I put the emphasis here on “languages” rather than “countries”, for in my experience literature only rarely coincides with frontiers on maps: it exists not behind national boundaries but in language, and in a psychic and emotional space that is governed by the laws of reading and common fellowship. The novels of Dostoyevsky and the poetry of Baratynsky and Blok may tell us something unique about the Russian soul, but they also speak in universal terms. Likewise, the verses of the Kalevala and the plays of Strindberg tell us much about the psyche of Northern Europe, but they also draw inner maps of human consciousness, and of the unconscious. And indeed, in my years of work as a literary translator I have become aware that in literary terms the three linguistic cultures I mentioned tend to overlap with one another. The work of Edith Södergran, the first of the poets of Finland whom I endeavoured to translate, is one of the living confirmations of that.

My first translations of Finland's literature were nearly all of Swedish-language poets and authors, of whom there are almost more than in Sweden itself. Then I began to study Finnish, first at London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies, and later at the University of Helsinki. Through my own reading and my many years of contact with members of the Finnish Literature Centre and the editors of Books from Finland magazine, I developed a knowledge of both Finland-Swedish and Finnish literature. This was further helped by meetings and friendships with contemporary authors – especially the poets Gösta Ågren, Bo Carpelan and Tua Forsström, with whom I worked on translations of their poetry, learning an enormous amount in the process – and with their editors and publishers in Finland. My British publishers Penguin and Bloodaxe also gave me encouragement in my work as a literary translator.

In recent years I have been reading the Finnish poetry of the early twentieth century, and am surprised to learn how few of the poets who lived in that period are translated into English. So that is one of my projects both for the present and for the future: to try to make the voices of Saima Harmaja, Kaarlo Sarkia, Katri Vala, Uuno Kailas and other poets from that long-ago time heard in English, for they still have many things to tell us.

Again, I would like to say thank you for this award, which I’m honoured to receive: for me it’s a landmark in my continuing discovery of Finland, its people, and its extraordinarily rich and diverse literature.

Translating poetry

On the BBC news website, Robin Fulton talks about his translations of the poetry of Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer.

Icelandic literary awards

Via Iceland Review: 

The poetry book Blódhófnir ("Bloodhoof") by Gerdur Kristný and Sveppabókin (“The Mushroom Book”) by Helgi Hallgrímsson received the 2010 Icelandic Literary Award at a special ceremony at Bessastadir, the presidential residence, on Wednesday [February 2].

Hat tip: Literary Saloon

Nordic Council Literature Prize 2011

The complete run-down of candidates for the 2011 Nordic Council Literature Award is as follows (NB Norway's Beate Grimsrud wrote her novel in both Norwegian and in Swedish versions):


Denmark

Josefine Klougart
Stigninger og fald
Novel, Rosinante, 2010

Harald Voetmann
Vågen
Novel, Gyldendal, 2010

Finland

Erik Wahlström
Flugtämjaren
Novel, Schildts, 2010

Kristina Carlson
Herra Darwinin puutarhuri (Herr Darwins trädgårdsmästare)
Novel, Otava, 2009 (Swedish translation, Janina Orlov)

Iceland

Gyrðir Elíasson
Milli trjánna (Bland träden)
Short stories, Uppheimar, 2009, (Swedish translation, John Swedenmark)

Ísak Harðarson
Rennur upp um nótt (Stiger upp om natten)
Poems, Uppheimar, 2009, (Swedish translation, John Swedenmark)

Norway

Beate Grimsrud
En dåre fri
Novel, Cappelen Damm, 2010

Carl Frode Tiller
Innsirkling 2
Novel, Aschehoug, 2010

Sweden

Beate Grimsrud
En dåre fri
Novel, Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2010

Anna Hallberg
Colosseum, Kolosseum
Poetry Collection, Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2010

Faroe Islands

Tóroddur Poulsen
Útsýni (Utsikt)
Poetry collection, Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins, 2009, (Swedish translation, Anna Mattsson)

Greenland

Kristian Olsen Aaju
Kakiorneqaqatigiit (Det tatoverede budskab)
Novel, Forlaget Atuagkat, 2010

Åland Islands

Sonja Nordenswan
Blues från ett krossat världshus
Novel, PQR-kultur, 2009

The Sami Language Area

Kerttu Vuolab
Bárbmoáirras (Paradisets stjerne)
Novel, Davvi Girji OS, 2008

(Via the Nordic Council)

Finnish State Prize for translation

This year's Finnish State Prize for translation has been awarded to Hebrew translator Rami Saari.

A valley in the violence

In Hbl Philip Teir interviews Finnish-Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen, whose work is being published in Sweden and who is tipped to win this year's Nordic Council Literature Prize. Excerpt:

After Sofi Oksanen appeared on a Danish TV culture show and depicted the Finnish people as depressive and uncommunicative she heard criticism from many quarters. The fact that Finland has two brutal school shootings behind it and a bleak set of statistics relating to violence was no excuse. This is stuff one shouldn't talk about to foreign journalists... "It isn't sanitary," was the view of Finland's Professor Laura Kolbe.

"I've learned that while many people don't mind as long as you stick to writing books and winning prizes ... as soon as you say something like this, the reaction is "Get back to Russia, you Estonian whore," says Oksanen, who grew up in Jyväskylä with a father who is Finnish and a mother who is Estonian.

See also: Knocking Finland

Levels Two to Five

Not strictly a Nordic item, perhaps, but Anthony Briggs has some interesting reflections on judging this year's Rossica Prize. Incidentally, a literal translation of the piece's title is: "God deliver us from judges like these." Money quote:

There is no circle in Dante’s Inferno to accommodate this kind of punishment for a life conducted in sin; those of us who have tormented others with words will probably have to move in somewhere on Levels Two to Five alongside other incontinents: the gluttons, misers and spendthrifts, the wrathful and sullen. (Plenty of friends there, then, and no shortage of translators).

Lost and found

In Hufvudstadsbladet's Plock & Fynd, Annika Hällsten considers the slightly uusual friendship between the Swedish feminist Ellen Key and the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, and Pia Ingström reflects on some meaningful remarks cast in her direction by two literary men at the recent award ceremony for the Finlandia Prize (won this year by Antti Hyry). There is also a discussion of Slow Reading in Finland...

Nordic Council Literature Prize nominations

They are as follows:

Denmark

• Peter Laugesen, Fotorama (Photorama), Poetry Collection, Forlaget Borgen 2009
• Ida Jessen, Børnene (The Children), Novel, Forlaget Gyldendal 2009

Finland

• Sofi Oksanen, Puhdistus (Purge), Novel, WSOY 2008
• Monika Fagerholm, Glitterscenen (The Glitter Scene), Novel, Söderströms och Albert Bonniers Förlag 2009

Iceland

• Einar Kárason, Ofsi (Fury), Novel, Mál og menning 2008, (Danish translation, Kim Lembek)

• Steinar Bragi, Konur (Women), Novel, Mál og menning 2008, (Swedish translation, Inge Knudson)

Norway

• Karl Ove Knausgård, Min kamp 1 (My Struggle, Part 1), Novel, Förlaget Oktober 2009
• Tomas Espedal, Imot kunsten (notatbøkene) (Towards Art (the notebokks)), Novel, Gyldendal 2009

Sweden

• Steve Sem-Sandberg, De fattiga i Łódź (The Destitutes of Lodz), Novel, Albert Bonniers Förlag 2009

• Ann Jäderlund, Vad hjälper det en människa om hon häller rent vatten över sig i alla sina dagar (What Does It Help A Person If She Pours Clean Water Over Herself For All Of Her Days), Poetry Collection, Albert Bonniers Förlag 2009

Faroe Islands

• Gunnar Hoydal, Í havsins hjarta (In the Heart of the Sea), Roman, Forlaget Sprotin 2007, (Danish translation, Jette Hoydal)

Greenland

No nominations submitted

The Sami Language Area

No nominations submitted

The winner will be chosen in Helsinki on March 29-30 2010.
http://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council/the-nordic-council-prizes/literature-prize/nominations-2010

Finlandia candidates announced - 2

FILI has issued more details of the Finlandia fiction prize nominees and their books:

Turkka Hautala: Salo (Gummerus)

The theme of Turkka Hautala’s debut novel is one of human destiny.One by one the residents of Salo take their turns speaking, in a chain-like structure. The spectrum of viewpoints extends from the anguish of a factory manager to the everyday compassion of the seller at a sausage kiosk, but the personalities merge into a cohesive whole. Hautala takes ordinary people as his characters and he knows how to see the humorous side of their actions. The novel is written in supple language using different registers and dialects. Salo builds a mosaic portrait of the declining Finland of today, and the author’s gaze is sharp and fresh.

Kari Hotakainen: Ihmisen osa (The Human Lot, Siltala)

At a bookfair, a writer meets a button seller who sells him her life story for 7,000 euros. Along with the sale, the reader receives a large slice of Finnish life and the history of entrepreneurship. The small business owner’s grind grind is replaced nowadays by endless meetings and imagination for sale. Like its characters, broken under the blows of an unrestricted market economy, Kari Hotakainen’s novel is customer-oriented but strongly resistant to change, critical of society, warm and intelligent.

Antti Hyry: Uuni (The Oven, Otava)

In Hyry’s novel, the reader’s interest is not directed to a plot or character portraits. There are no dramatic turning points in this description of the construction of a baking oven. On the surface,Hyry’s writing is reminiscent of the kinds of modernists who build their texts on simple perceptions of the world of objects in order to emphasize incompleteness in their sketches of the world. Instead, the person in Hyry’s book is taking concrete steps to establish a home in the world. His tasks gain their significance from the meaningful places of life in its entirety. This portrait of everyday life thus opens out into a cosmos where the central character is living the life he was meant to live.

Marko Kilpi: Kadotetut (The Lost Ones, Gummerus)

Kilpi’s work explodes the conventions of the detective genre,because attention is focused not on the intellectual puzzle of solving a crime or understanding a criminal’s motivation. Instead, crime is taken seriously as a psychological, humanistic moral and societal phenomenon. The violent criminal is seen as psychologically abnormal, while at the same time his activities provide the impetus for the popular media’s pursuit of simple labeling of our society.

The police are shown as psychologically stressed due to their experiences of the human suffering and cruelty inherent in violent crime, and the victims of crime are examined not only in the narrow terms of rescue or death – rather, the possibility that those “rescued” are so psychologically wounded that they may never be able to live a normal life is seriously considered. Kilpi’s book reveals how deeply traumatic violent crime is for everyone it touches.

Merete Mazzarella: Ingen saknad, ingen sorg (No regret, no sorrow,
Söderströms / Atlantis)

Merete Mazzarella’s novel is a nuanced and empathetic description of a day in the life of 79-year-old Zacharias Topelius, at the same time viewing Topelius as tied to his own time, giving the portrayal a delicate irony. On the one hand, the novel is a study of old age with all that it entails: memory, renunciation, loss, emotion, the reevaluation of perceptions, even doubts about one's past deeds and thoughts. On the other hand, the book is a study of the Finnish mentality of the 1800s through the contemplation one who would in future be a central cultural figure. In a Topelius family circle made up for the most part of women, women’s issues in various historical eras gain particular significance.

Tommi Melender: Ranskalainen ystävä (The French Friend, WSOY)

Tommi Melender’s novel is about friendship in a world where friendship is a diminishing resource. At the beginning of the novel, a well-known academic, identifying with Gustave Flaubert’s disgust with modern life, leaves his job and escapes to a small town in France, where he encounters certain darker aspects of contemporary European reality. The novel’s skillful composition combines a contemporary portrait of the European literary heritage with the bleak and pessimistic tones of a reluctance to believe in solidarity between people, or the possibility of friendship, or love itself.

See also: Finlandia candidates announced

Finlandia candidates announced

The shortlist of candidates for this years 30,000 euro Finlandia Literary Prize has been announced (apparently leaked by Uusi Suomi a day early), Hbl reports, noting that Finland-Swedish author Merete Mazzarella's Ingen saknad, ingen sorg – En dag i Zacharias Topelius liv is present on the list in its Finnish translation (published by Tammi). The other candidates are:

Turkka Hautala -  Salo (Gummerus)
Kari Hotakainen Ihmisen osa (Gummerus)
Antti Hyry Uuni (Otava)
Marko Kilpi Kadotetut (Gummerus)
Tommi Melender Ranskalainen ystävä (WSOY)

In their statement, the members of the jury remark that many of the novels submitted for consideration this year show signs of the influence of the methods and conventions of the detective novel - even those which have little connection with the thriller genre. This is a tendency that has been pointed to on this blog more than once.

The prizewinner will be announced on December 2.

Whales and Horses

I was pleased to learn that Tarkovsky's Horses and Other Poems, my translation of two collections of Pia Tafdrup's poetry (The Whales in Paris and Tarkovsky's Horses) due to be published by Bloodaxe early next year, was selected as a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The PBS book club recommendations mark out the books, not the authors or translators, and in the field of poetry translation there's usually only one recommendation per quarter. The PBS list for Spring 2010 is:

Choice: Derek Walcott, White Egrets (Faber)
Recommendations:
Edward Hirsch, The Living Fire (Carcanet)
Lachlan MacKinnon, Small Hours (Faber)
Patrick McGuinness, Jilted City (Carcanet)
Robin Robertson, The Wrecking Light (Picador)
Recommended Translation: Pia Tafdrup (trans. David McDuff), Tarkovsky’s Horses (Bloodaxe)
Special Commendation: Louis Simpson, Voices in the Distance: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe)

Hat tip: Neil Astley

2010 Susan Sontag Prize for Translation

The organizers of the U.S.-based Susan Sontag Prize for Translation, awarded to literary translators under the age of 30, has issued a call for submissions. The 2010 prize (a grant of $5000) will go to a translator of Nordic literature - Swedish, Norwegian, Danish or Icelandic, though Finnish is excluded (presumably Finland-Swedish qualifies). Application forms can be downloaded from the Susan Sontag website, which also has details of the other rules and conditions.

(Hat tip: Three Percent)