Jarmo Karonen: Finlandia Winner Resists Classification
(Translated by Liisa Rantalaiho)
(Cosmos Pen 2/2003)
Johanna Sinisalo has busily been travelling around Europe to launch the translations of her first book ”Not Before Sundown” that received the Finlandia Award. In the middle of June she had time to visit the Lahti International Authors’ Meeting on the grounds of the Mukkula Summer Hotel. On the terrace we discussed Sinisalo’s new book, the compartmentalizing of science fiction, the translations of her first novel and the coming English language anthology of Finnish science fiction.
Johanna Sinisalo became a known and acknowledged author in the year 2000 with her first novel "Not Before Sundown". The book won the esteemed Finnish literary award, Finlandia, and made the favourite of science fiction fandom known also by the wider public. After the first novel, Sinisalo has continued working for the national TV, for instance writing manuscripts to the Finnish drama series Kotikatu (Home Street), as well as writing her new novel that’s going to be published this autumn. Of Sinisalo’s second novel nothing more has been revealed except its name: ”Sankarit” (The Heroes).
– The new novel is ready, except for the finishing touches. I can just tell you that there’s still material for study in Finnish mythology. Modern myths, too, are something I deal with. Myths are emerging all the time, Sinisalo says.
According to Sinisalo, writing a new book is perhaps harder in the way that expectations after the Finlandia Award are certainly very high. On the other hand, it’s easier when one already has established oneself as an author. There’s no more danger of the book not being taken seriously.
–The fact is that only after three-four works authors are really called authors, while I have slipped into the category through the kitchen door, says Sinisalo.
Of her writer’s work the author tells it’s comfortably divided between lonely grinding with the novel and the teamwork of TV-writing. Technically and methodically Sinisalo is a very systematic writer. She looks for structures and frames and sets herself deadlines.
– I know some authors start from the beginning and just let go, but for me that is alien. I try to be very conscious of what I’m doing.
What is holy
In her own words, Johanna Sinisalo nearly panicked when she arrived in Mukkula and read the other authors’ speeches about holiness, this year’s subject of discussion in the meeting.
– I thought this might be a good forum to bring up the holy cows of literature, but then I found out people had actually taken a theological and esoteric approach.
The authors’ meeting undoubtedly discussed very metaphysical issues: experience of the holy, its subjectivity and cultural context. Sinisalo herself took a stand against the compartmentalizing of literature. For a new writer and especially a genre writer – such as for instance detective novels – it’s difficult to be sanctified as part of the literary canon.
– It’s infuriating that there is in literature such a terrible need to compartmentalize works. To put a book into some category may give about it certain strong and often wrong connotations that create an aversive reaction in the public. About my first novel an image spread out that it is science fiction, which it isn’t as far as I understand, or if it is, only extremely marginally. Then I heard people say that I don’t want to read that ‘cause it’s some kind of sf. When somebody had forced them to take the book and start, those same persons had often actually liked it.
To be branded as genre writerSinisalo herself is branded as a genre writer, and that her novel was categorized as science fiction must surely have come about because of her long past as a fantasy and science fiction short story writer.
– The broadness of genres is not clear to the wider public. Therefore it seems more sensible to me not to emphasize genres so much if it causes such misunderstandings.
The compartmentalization hasn’t been a problem abroad, however.
–I haven’t heard of any categorization attempts in the countries where it’s been translated; perhaps just because my dark past isn’t known in there, Sinisalo says and laughs.
Sinisalo hasn’t completely left the short story form behind herself, however, and she’s proud of the short prose she has written.
– I still write short stories, if I get a strong enough impulse. Otherwise they easily get run over by the larger projects. Last autumn the Book Studio published an anthology ”Intohimosta rikokseen” (From Passion to Crime), and they asked me to write a short story about crime and eroticism.
A collection of short stories doesn’t sound an impossible idea to Sinisalo, either, and there actually is a certain demand for that.
– My published short stories might be compiled into a collection, with some re-writing and bringing up to date. I have a series of science fiction short stories treating each of the planets in the Solar system; that might provide an integrated collection.
Seven translations”Not Before Sundown” has already been translated into six different languages: Japanese, Latvian, Czech, Swedish, English and French; the seventh, Italian, is on its way.
While she was writing the novel, Johanna thought it’d be nice to see it in translation, but she quickly shed the thought: she felt the novel was much too closely bound to the Finnish tradition and culture.
– On the other hand, perhaps that’s just why it sells so well abroad: it’s exotic.
Of the translations, Sinisalo has herself checked only the English one.
– Even my Swedish is too poor to give very sharp advice to the translator. I’ve heard some comments that the Swedish translation might be a bit unsuccessful. The English translation differs slightly from the original because of the translation rights of certain text excerpts. I’ve heard the book agrees excellently with French and it’s sold there pretty well, too, since when I was there a week ago to launch the book, it already had gone into second printing.
Among the European translations, Japanese is a strange bedfellow.
– Japanese was the first translation to be done and it emerged really fast. Its cover and outlook are the most apt, tells Sinisalo.
Finnish fantasy onto the world mapBesides Sinisalo’s work, there’s a wider demand abroad for Finnish fantasy literature. The British publisher Daedalus Books has recently approached Sinisalo with an interesting offer. They want to publish an anthology to present Finnish fantasy, edited by Johanna Sinisalo. Daedalus Books has already published several anthologies of European fantasy; thus there is a good basis for the project.
– That’s where we come again to the questions of genre. In Europe, fantasy is understood in a much broader sense than in Finland. Whatever is strange of surrealistic may be considered fantasy. The various country anthologies have included fantasy from one end to the other, angels and devils, fables; the scale is broad.
The collection of the anthology is still in an early stage, but considering her choices, Sinisalo has already decided upon some names.
– I’ve considered taking an excerpt from the ”Sudenmorsian” (Wolf’s Bride) of Aino Kallas. Leena Krohn is an obvious choice, so are Jyrki Vainonen and Maarit Verronen. I need to dig into the early works of Juhani Peltonen, he has written short story prose with a very surrealistic and dark tone. I also intend to check if there might be something suitable in the horror stories that Mika Waltari wrote under the pseudonym of Kristian Korppi. It would be nice to find all short stories whose author already has some name in the country of the translation.
Sinisalo also thinks new writers might be given space when there are texts with good enough quality.
– There are new writers of a high standard even among those published in the fantasy magazines.
That’s where Sinisalo worked, too, on the pages of the small science fiction and fantasy magazines, before she took her leap into the consciousness of the public at large.
Originally published in Cosmos Pen 2/2003. Photo: Tammi / Eriika Ahopelto. All rights reserved.