Work is ennobling

Nominated for the Nordic Council's Literary Award

Jovnna-Ánde Vest
Arvingarna III   ("The Inheritors", vol. III)
Davvi Girji, Finland

By Jógvan Isaksen

Like so many Nordic authors before him, one of the leading authors from the Sami linguistic region writes about his homeland, and its people, in another country. In Jovnna-Ánde Vest's case, the author works in Paris - but when one has read the third part of his trilogy of novels, one may hardly reproach him for it. Not that life is bad in the far north of Finland, but the prerequisite for survival is a tough working day - where work itself is more important than anything else. Work from first to last - the description of it may seem somewhat harsh for a contemporary reader from a bit further south, until one remembers that, anywhere else in Scandinavia, one need go no further back than a generation or two before one finds that idleness was the worst sin, and hard work the goal of everything.

But how is one to make a living in a place where the diminutive population is for ever dwindling, and where the hard physical work on the farm, in the short periods when anything at all can be grown, has worn the old people out? In the long months of darkness one can only look after the animals, and wonder if there is anybody at all who has the energy to take over such an inheritance. If there is no-one, the old people may well feel that all their toil has been in vain. Here, though, there are some gleams of hope. A young family moves back to the region, having been unable to settle down in Sweden, and they bring life, new energy, and children back home with them. And there are others like them.

The novel is best when recording the details of everyday life - when wood is sawn, or salmon is caught - but also in its description of Heiko, the young bachelor's project. He wants to gather material for a large-scale folklore and biographical account of life on the furthest promontory of Stallonäset. Finally unable to complete the project, he shelves it - and it seems like a death sentence has been passed on the old culture.

Jovnna-Ánde Vest is one of the leading authors of Sami literature, and, in this last part of his trilogy, he gives an unsentimental description of his home-land and of the people who have grown up as part of its landscape. It is a kind of community life which requires considerable endurance, but which also, through the life of the community, brings with it something which is not to be found elsewhere in modern society.

Translated by Philip Edmonds