Finnish literature for export

- three winning concepts

By Maria Antas

I
Imagine three Finns who have to save Venice from flooding and the culture clash between northern and southern Europe as a post-modern comedy. Then read Hannu Raittila's novel Canal Grande.

II
Imagine how three women feel as they move around the city's underpasses on dark nights, and how some of them decide to take revenge on the men who threaten their security. Read more about this in Anja Snellman's Pelon maantiede (The Geography of Fear).

III
Imagine two small sisters who live in a sunny, unthreatening world where growing pains and meeting funny (funny ha-ha and funny peculiar) grown-ups are the biggest mysteries. These two sisters are called Heinähattu and Vilttitossu (Straw Hat and Felt Slipper), and they are the main characters in a long series of books by Tiina and Sinikka Nopola, for schoolchildren - and for adults who love everyday crazy humour.

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Here are three strong points of view in the literature that Finland has for export at the moment. The first point of the triangle is populated by men who. like the hit author Arto Paasilinna, write social satire about men who no longer fit in with society's expectations. Kari Hotakainen, who won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize for the novel Juoksuhaudantie (The Trench Road), is one of those who are being translated most of all just now.

This specialist Finnish genre of low-key humour is almost inexhaustible, and constantly produces new cult authors who hit the mark according to the tastes of both publishers and readers. Mikko Rimminen, who has written Pussikaljaromaani (Park Life), a debut novel about a day in the life of three guys wandering round Helsinki, belongs to the latest intake into this eternal genre. Literary intelligence and humour, plus the right amount of analysis of manliness, tickles the literary tastebuds of both men and women, in Finland and in other countries.

Standing on the second point of Finland's literary exports are the female authors. Just as in the other Nordic countries, Finnish women stepped forward with powerful voices during the modern breakthrough around the 1880s. And just as in the rest of the North, this remains an unbroken tradition. Every Nordic country has its Herbjørg Wassmo, Marianne Fredriksson or Kirsten Thorup - and each one has also found readers abroad. Just now, authors like Leena Lander, Anja Snellman and Monika Fagerholm are parts of this dynamic tradition.

Monika Fagerholm's novel Den amerikanska flickan (The American Girl) has been an enormous success in Sweden, and a long list of countries are waiting to read it in translation. In this tradition, innovative ways are found to manage the image of Nordic women who are not afraid to push the boundaries, whether existential or artistic. A little over twenty years ago, the writing voices of names like Rosa Liksom and Annika Idström created strong reactions both in Finland and abroad. Audacity and social sensitivity arouse admiration - even in cases where these qualities vary in the thriller genre that has put all the Nordic countries on the European literary map. Leena Lehtolainen, Finland's most productive female thriller-writer, has her own fan club in Germany, for example.

The third point of the export triangle is children's and teenage literature. Many countries have turned their gaze to Finland as a result of the European investigation of schoolchildren's proficiencies. According to the PISA investigation, Finnish schoolchildren are exceptionally accomplished. Pedagogic expert groups have spent a long time explaining the success. Finland as a child-orientated and pedagogically advanced country has increased the interest of foreign publishers of children's and teenage literature.

The writing sisters, Sinikka and Tiina Nopola, are therefore easier to launch now than before. Their positive, life-affirming humour, which also leaves room for the things children find painful, is greatly loved by children in Finland. But these two are just the top of a delicious ice-cream mountain; authors like Tomi Kontio, Timo Parvela and Hannele Huovi are some of those who are writing for children and teenagers and can follow in the Nopola sisters' footsteps towards countries like Japan, Lithuania and even England, the world's choosiest book-market. Doors have been opened there now that a children's publishing company has bought the rights to Riitta Jalonen's sensitive, lyrical picture story about a child's encounter with death.

From England to Germany and back?
If one looks at quantities, the figures for Finnish literature in translation, the picture looks like this: in 1995, Estonian, English and Swedish were the commonest languages, with almost the same number of translations each. In 2005, the top was less crowded. In Germany, 29 Finnish books were published in translation. The next languages at the top were Swedish and Estonian, with 15 translations each. These figures show how the advances that Nordic literature has made in Germany have also left their mark on the exporting of Finnish literature.

From the same ten-year perspective, it is also clear that one of the clear winners in Finnish literature is the contemporary novel. In 1995, 82 novels were published in translation. Ten years later, the figure was 111. On the whole, the number of translated titles has increased since 2000. There are, of course, various reasons why the number should be increasing, one of which may be purely literary: the books that are being translated today represent everything from thrillers to advanced science fiction. For example, Johanna Sinisalo's novel Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi (published in the UK as "Not Before Sundown" and in the USA as "Troll: A love story") combines the thrillerish with Nordic troll mythology and current gay themes - all in a bold (but reader-friendly) fragmented form.

In the middle of the most popular genres, the quality novel has also found foreign publishers. The sensuous first novel from Ranya Paasonen (formerly ElRamly), about parents who tried in their marriage to combine Finland and Egypt, has also found its way to many publishing houses abroad, just like Kjell Westö, Petri Tamminen and Kari Hotakainen, with their sharp wording and almost Kaurismäki-like belief in people's good will.

Network North
The launching and promotion of Finnish literature has for 30 years been the responsibility of FILI - the Finnish Literature Information Centre. Behind this office, the shapes of both the Education Department's cultural section and Finnish funds can be made out. The reason that there is sufficient money today to support translations that are to be published by foreign companies is because there is a cultural-political will to support literature's journey abroad. At the same time, FILI enjoys great freedom to react quickly. The book-market in Great Britain was almost closed to foreign literature, but by joining together with the other Nordic countries in the Network North project, new channels have been opened into that market.

The investment in children's and teenage literature can also be regarded as a rapid answer to the surrounding world's interest in Finnish children's successes at school. And on the basis of experiences at the book fair in Moscow in 2005, one of the focuses of activity has from this year on become Russia, which is suddenly showing great curiosity about Finland's contemporary literature - above all children's and teenage literature, including the illustrations in the books.

Fact + fiction = true?
The international trend in the wake of post-structuralism to blur the dividing line between fact and fiction is right now one of the great challenges in Finnish cultural politics. Support for writers of non-fiction is lower than the support for writers of fiction. Neither is there any channel for promoting non-fiction books to foreign publishers, despite the fact that non-fiction as a genre is going through an unusually dynamic period. Younger academics are often very conscious of narrative structures and rhetorically interesting points when they write their theses and other factual books.

Here lies one of the challenges in Finnish cultural politics: finally acknowledging that the non-fiction book needs and deserves the status of verbal art for an international readership. Anybody should be able to read books about ancient sport, medieval executioners and modern architecture's masterly skyscraper designers, Eliel and Eero Saarinen, without having taken a degree in the Finnish language - shouldn't they?

Translated by Roy Hodson