The renaissance of realism

This year’s edition of Nordic Literature is unusual because we have decided to start working alongside a major external partner: the Scandinavian Institute at the University of Aarhus. Some time ago – about a year ago in fact – the Institute agreed to plan and edit a special section on neorealism in Nordic literature. As the collection of articles printed here shows, the result is full of valuable insight as well as covering a wide geographical range. Starting with historical realism – Bang and Ibsen – the articles include reflections on multi-culturalism, autobiography, summaries for individual countries, a focus on individual works and much more. The editorial staff regard this special section as an important contribution to the debate on the renaissance of realism in Nordic literature.

The original idea behind an annual publication focusing on Nordic literature was to inform people about the candidates for the Nordic Council’s Literature Award. So once again this year we include reviews of all the books that have been nominated – each one presented by a reviewer from another country. This has been our policy for a number of years now, and it has proved useful in ensuring the objectivity of the assessments given as well as making a small contribution to a sense of joint Nordic literary community.

Finland is very well represented this year, including articles on the appearance of immigrants in Finnish literature and on two of the great works of Finnish literature: Väinö Linna’s novels Okänd soldat and Här under polstjärnan. Two artist’s novels are also presented: Reko Lundán has written a diary during the creation of a play, and in parallel to this Sabine Forsblom talks about working with words and pictures. But this year’s edition is not all about Finland! From Iceland we have an article on whether the modern phenomenon of blog can be regarded as literature, and from Norway there is a discussion of how Georg Brandes and the modern breakthrough are perceived in modern Danish literature.

The present editorial staff have now been working together for almost six years, and our collective conscience has always been plagued by one issue in particular: the poor coverage granted to Sami and Greenlandic literature. Last year we managed to include a summary of Sami literature, and this year Jon Michelet from Norway has written an article based on a trip in the summer of 1996 that seeks to outline the potential of Greenlandic society. Finally, let me just draw your attention to our reference to a conference to be held in Nordens Hus in Tórshavn in November 2005, the theme of which will be the marketing of literature in languages only spoken by small minorities.

Jógvan Isaksen, Editor-in-chief