For example, the first official article I could find about the announcement of shortlist is from YLE, and its title says it all: “Only women nominated for top literary prize.”

Actually, that doesn’t say it all—check out this opening, which is in bold on the site:

Six novels have been nominated for the annual Finlandia Prize for literature on Thursday—only this time all of the writers are women, while men are conspicuous by their absence.

I know this is a bit of a facetious argument, but if the shortlist was 100% male, the headline would be more along the lines of “Top Finnish authors battle for major literary prize,” and that bolded intro would be “with novels ranging from historical fiction to experimental prose poetry, works from Finland’s most important authors compete for a 30,000 euro prize.” In other words, shit wouldn’t be said about the single-sex shortlist. (Maybe. I know I’m postulating, but I just have a feeling.)

I guess the thing that bugs me about this kind of coverage is that it takes one meta-aspect (the fact all the writers are women) and foregrounds it, before ever mentioning a single one of the actual books. Thankfully, the YLE piece does provide brief summaries of all the titles:

Eeva-Kaarina Aronen’s Kallorumpu (“Skull Drum” in literal translation) tells of the life of Finland’s former president and military hero, Marshall C.G.E. Mannerheim, in his home in Helsinki. Many things in that house and in the city are not what they seem. The novel, which focuses on one November day in 1935, reaches beyond to paint an insightful picture of the era.

William N. päiväkirja (“The Diary of William N.”) by Kristina Carlson takes the reader to Paris, detailing the last few years that prominent Finnish lichen researcher William Nylander spent there. The work is a plunge into the world of an old, single-minded scientist.

Laura Gustafsson broke in to the list with her first novel Huorasatu (“Whorestory”), which was earlier seen as a play. The author rewrites ancient myths as she charts out the prehistory of women and constructs the perfect world.
Renowned writer Laila Hirvisaari has created what the jury called the pinnacle of the Finnish historical novel in her Minä, Katariina (“I, Catherine”). This is the life story of a German princess engaged to marry into the Russian royal family, with all of its schemes, when she was barely out of childhood.

Rosa Liksom’s Hytti nro 6 (“Compartment Number 6”) is set during the year 1986, when the Soviet Union is beginning to open up. Two travellers, a girl and a man—a Finnish student and a 40-year-old Russian macho—take the train through Russia towards the mountains of Mongolia.

Finally, the first novel of Jenni Linturi, Isänmaan tähden (“For the Fatherland”) tackles the subject of guilt. A former volunteer in the Finnish volunteer battalion of the Nazi Waffen-SS, now an old man, rifles through his memories, in which the past and the present, comrades in arms and family members all fuse together in disconcerting chaos.

The Dalkey Archive Press published a violent and stark collection of stories by Rosa Liksom a few years back, so for that reason alone, I’m hoping “Compartment Number 6” wins. The announcement will take place on December 1st.

Before getting into the “controversy” part of this post, here’s a look at the six finalists. (All descriptions from the FILI newsletter):

• Joel Haahtela, Katoamispiste (Vanishing Point)

Haahtela’s narrative is skillful and engaging, concise and visual. At the center of Katoamispiste is the writer and the written word. Haahtela recounts a writer in crisis, as it were, but through another writer, and thus without self-pity. At the same time, Katoamispiste is both clear and mystical, every sentence measured and mastered to form a solid and memorable whole.

• Markus Nummi, _Karkkipäivä _ (Candy Day)

Markus Nummi tells this story from two points of view, a child’s and an adult’s. The logic of the child’s story begins to take shape for the adult only by means of the world of adults. Nonsense becomes sensible and the child becomes visible. The good Samaritan of Nummi’s story is no different from other people in terms of innate goodness or beauty, he is in fact a rather reluctant helper who accidentally meets a child in difficult circumstances and slowly but surely decides, or is driven, to take responsibility.

• Rikka Pulkkinen, Totta (True)

On the first page of Riikka Pulkkinen’s book is a dramatic sentence: “Everything happened so quickly: examination, biopsy, diagnosis.” After the diagnosis is received, Elsa, a psychologist with a successful career, wants to come home. There she is cared for by her husband, daughter, and granddaughter, who learns by chance the silenced story of the “other woman” in her grandparents’ marriage. The love story of the young Eeva and the married man Martti becomes the main theme of the novel, through which the author plumbs ageless questions of guilt and forgiveness.

• Mikko Rimminen, �����ä��ä����ä (Nose Day)

At first Irma, the main character of �����ä��ä����ä, is a riddle. She seeks out contact with other people by conducting fictitious Gallup-poll surveys from door to door. She doesn’t answer her son’s calls, and her best friend Virtanen, swimming in canned cocktails, is not the building superintendent, although that’s what it says on his door. Rimminen’s cityscape is dim and slushy, its hallways exuding isolation. Into this world the author brings his own over-the-top language and style, an inventiveness unmatched in Finnish literature. Best of all, at story’s end, along with the laughter and tears, the novel’s characters, battered by his world, arouse authentic fellow-feeling in the reader. [This one sounds interesting to me.]

• Alexandra Salmela, _27 Eli kuolema tekee taiteilijan (27, or Death Makes an Artist)

Alexandra Salmela’s main character Ange has a goal: to die at the age of 27, like Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and many other artists, and become a legend. When she turns 27, however, she isn’t even an artist yet. Her muddled attempts to write her way to fame take her from Prague to the garden cottage of a Finnish country house, where great expectations blend amusingly with everyday country life. [Also sounds intriguing.]

• Erik Wahlström, Flugtämjaren

In this book, Erik Wahlström reclothes Finnish national poet J. L. Runeberg and his inner circle. Wahlström’s great men and women at the birth of Finnishness are people, not just hooks on which to hang great national ideologies. The book is not a history, it is the author’s interpretation of what kind of man Runeberg was under the cloak of the poet: a long-suffering observer who also enjoys being a celebrity, a family man perpetually enamored of young women, and in the end an old man confined to his bed whose only contact with his beloved nature was an attempt to tame flies. The book is a cornucopia of varied voices, a profound and nimbly elegant melange.

Now stems from the fact that Alexandra Salmela is not actually a Finnish citizen—one of the primary eligibility criteria. According to YLE:

She was born and raised in Bratislava, then part of Czechoslovakia and now capital of Slovakia.

Salmela studied dramaturgy at Bratislava’s theatre academy before deciding to study Finnish. She has studied the language for eight years and lived here for four. She is married to a Finn and lives with her children in Tampere. Salmela’s debut novel, 27 Eli kuolema tekee taiteilijan (27 Or Death Makes an Artist), is set in Prague. Helsingin Sanomat hailed it as the first true Finnish-language adult novel by an immigrant.

In a statement issued on Thursday afternoon, the Finnish Book Foundation affirmed that Salmela would be allowed to compete for the prize anyway. The Foundation does not normally check on Finlandia nominees’ citizenship. As it considers Salmela’s inclusion as its own mistake, the author will not be disqualified.

Definitely agree with that the jury is making the right choice, and I recommend reading his breakdown of how complicated the rule writing system is for a prize given in a country that’s populated by Finnish, Swedish, and Saami speakers.

Personally, I’m most interested in the fiction, so here’s the complete list with descriptions of each title from FILI:

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 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.

Looking these over, I’m surprised (somewhat) by how literary, how experimental these books sound. (“There are no dramatic turning points in this description of the construction of a baking oven.” Being one Nouveau Romanish sounding example.) A “chain narrative,” a book that toys with conventions of the detective genre . . . All sound pretty promising. I might (hopefully) be going on an editor’s trip to Helsinki next August, so I’ll be able to find out a lot more about what’s going on in Finnish literature . . .

In terms of the other categories, here are the titles and very brief descriptions of the children’s book finalists:

Siiri Enoranta: Omenmean vallanhaltija (The Ruler of Omenmea, Robustos)

In Siiri Enoranta’s novel, two girls, Ninir and Nezsandra, have a trouble-free friendship, until Ninir falls into quicksand in the Death Wilderness and is paralysed.

Antti Halme: Metalliveljet (Metal Brothers, Otava)

“What do you think about going to Norway for the summer, Harri-berry? Sounds pretty rad, eh?” Harri put his head in his hands. Dad’s street lingo was from the last millennium, way before rap – months before the invention of the folk dance, in fact.

Juba: Minerva, Jääkarhun sydän (Minerva: The Polar Bear’s Heart, Otava)

Juba’s Minerva has given Finnish children’s comics an active, energetic girl hero. In Minerva’s flying rocking chair we travel to the North Pole, where elephant seals are making their living as oil magnates. To win the love of an elephant seal girl, the hapless suitor Yrjänä must bring her the heart of the last polar bear.

Mari Kujanpää: Minä ja Muro (Muro and Me, Illustrated by Aino-Maija Metsola, Otava)

“There are two kinds of adults: dentist-adults and teacher-adults. Dentist-adults talk adult language among themselves as if there were no kids listening. Teacher-adults try to be funny and ask a lot of questions.”

Paula Noronen: Emilian päiväkirja. Supermarsu pelastaa silakat. (Emilia’s Diary: Superguinea Rescues the Herring, Illustrated by Pauliina Mäkelä, Gummerus)

What should you do when your school is infested with mould, the Baltic is polluted, and there are many other problems in society? Call Emilia, aka Superguinea, of course. You need super powers to get all the herring into a bathtub and all the lake water to Venus. Otherwise adults will never understand that saving the environment is really important. The only place super powers don’t help is in family life, when Emilia’s mother takes up with a boyfriend who has the worst table manners in East Helsinki.

Maria Turtschaninoff: Arra. Legender från Lavora (Arra: Legends of Lavora, Söderströms)

Maria Turtschaninoff’s book is the story of a girl named Arra, born and raised in hopelessness, rejected and despised by her family. Arra doesn’t learn to talk like other children, because no one takes any notice of her or speaks to her. Speech has no meaning for her.

And the nonfiction:

Hollmén, Roope: Juuret Karjalassa (Roots in Karelia, Facto)

Roope Hollmén presents a basic work on Karelia, Karelian history and Karelians that is multi-faceted and thorough. The book is a modern one, written with up-to-date information for today’s reader. It is an accessible work for those who do not have ties of their own to the province.

Laurell Seppo (primary author): Valo merellä. Suomen majakat 1753-1906 (Light on the Sea: Finnish Lighthouses 1753-1906, with photography by Petri Porkola, Swedish translation by Pär-Henrik Sjöström, John Nurmisen Säätiö)

Seppo Laurell and the other editors of Valo merellä have collected an authoritative and very handsome defining work on Finnish lighthouses. With its text, pictures, and previously unknown original blueprints, the book is a comprehensive compendium of the lighthouses themselves, as well as their history and architecture.

Maasola, Juha: Kirves (The Axe, Maahenki)

Juha Massola uses a particular, indispensable object to write about living cultural history. Through descriptions of the labour inextricably connected with the axe, the feelings associated with it, and the meanings arising from it, he sheds light on the entire way of life dictated by our geographical and environmental circumstances.

Parpola, Antti – Åberg, Veijo: Metsävaltio. Metsähallitus ja Suomi 1859-2009 (A Forest Nation: The Finnish Forest and Park Service, 1859-2009, Edita)

Antti Parpola and Veijo Åberg have written a work that belongs at the pinnacle of corporate and institutional histories. The forest is one of the central themes of Finnish life, both as a means of livelihood and as a source of recreation.

Tandefelt, Henrika: _Borgå 1809. Ceremoni och fest. SLS.
Porvoo 1809. Juhlamenoja ja tanssiaisia_ (Porvoo 1809: Festivals and Balls, SKS, Finnish translation by Jussi T. Lappalainen)

Henrika Tandefelt’s work deals with well-known historical events, but it succeeds in shedding new light on them. Events surrounding the birth of a nation in Porvoo 200 years ago are brought to life with close-up descriptions seen through the eyes of participants and observers of these events.

Ylikangas, Mikko: Unileipää, kuolonvettä, spiidiä. Huumeet Suomessa 1800-1950 (Sleepbread, Deathwater, Speed: Drugs in Finland, 1800-1950, Atena)

Mikko Ylikangas’ book offers a new and surprising compendium of a little-examined aspect of our history. Drugs are a global threat usually understood as a product of contemporary society and globalisation. Ylikangas brings a historic point of view of Finland’s history of recreational drugs and drug addiction that is unknown to many readers.

More information on all these books can be found And I’ll definitely post about the winners as soon as they are announced.