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Contemporary literature from Greece, Moldova and more to be translated into Finnish

The source languages of the nine new books to be translated include Spanish, Ukrainian and German, and, as a first for this grant, Greek and Romanian – among others. Two of the grants went to dramatic texts in book form.  

The Finnish Cultural Foundation created the Translating world literature into Finnish grant in 2022. Targeted at publishers, the funding aims to make world literature available in Finnish – particularly, works from source languages that are less frequently translated into Finnish.

The sum granted in 2024 was 100,000 euros. The total to be awarded over ten years, 1 million euros, will allow for one hundred high-quality works from around the world to be made available in Finland. A list of the books published until now can be found at www.skr.fi/maailmankirjallisuus. 

Nine new books

Finnish translations of contemporary Greek literature are very rare, but the grant will allow the Enostone publishing company to release a translation of Η Άκρα Ταπείνωση (The Ultimate Humiliation) by Greek author Rhea Galanaki. Galanaki is a long-standing, highly regarded, award-winning writer, whose works have been translated into fifteen languages. The Ultimate Humiliation portrays the uneasy period sparked by the Greek financial crisis with humanity and wisdom.

Siltala will publish a Finnish translation of German author Daniel Kehlmann’s novel Lichtspiel. This psychologically astute, masterfully narrated story is situated in the world of film and propaganda in the Third Reich, also touching upon Hollywood and its cult of celebrity.

Sammakko will publish the novel Інтернат (The Orphanage) by Ukrainian author Serhiy Zhadan. Writer and rock star Zhadan is renowned not only in his homeland but around the world, and The Orphanage has already become something of a European classic. It describes the war-torn reality of a bleak and chaotic city, based on experiences of the war waged in Eastern Ukraine since 2014.

Two dramatic texts will be published in book format. Poesia received a grant for the translation of the Moldovan play Simfonia progresului (Symphony of Progress), which is about Eastern European migrant workers. The documentary-style play examines the treatment of these workers in Western Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic, at the same time shedding light on the problems related to seasonal work in Finnish agriculture from the perspective of a Moldovan picker. Another play, the autofictional Angabe der Person by Austrian Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek will be released in Finnish by Teatterin Uusi Alkukirjasto. 

Extensive efforts to support reading 

The Finnish Cultural Foundation has long been working to encourage Finns to read more, providing millions of euros in funding to the nation’s literary field. Efforts made by the foundation in recent years have included encouraging parents of small children to read aloud, expanding the book selections of school libraries and making books in plain language available to lower secondary schools.

The grant that encourages publishers to have world literature translated into Finnish forms a part of this continuum, providing adult readers with access to books translated from languages that very few Finns can read in the original. 

Recipients of the Translating world literature into Finnish grant, 2024

  • Aviador Kustannus Oy, for translating and publishing the novel Cometierra by Dolores Reyes (Argentina)                                                                                                     
  • Moebius, for translating and publishing the novel La capacidad de amar del señor Königsberg by Juan Jacinto Muñoz Rengel (Spain)                                         
  • Kustannusosakeyhtiö Sammakko, for translating and publishing the novel Інтернат by Serhiy Zhadan (Ukraine)
  • Kustannusosakeyhtiö Siltala, for translating and publishing the novel Lichtspiel by Daniel Kehlmann (Germany)
  • Osuuskunta Poesia, for translating and publishing the play Simfonia progresului (Moldova) about Eastern European migrant workers 
  • Oy Enostone Ltd, for translating and promoting Gelos, part two in the climate change trilogy by Ana Filomena Amaral (Portugal)                                             
  • Oy Enostone Ltd, for translating and promoting Η Άκρα Ταπείνωση by Rhea Galanaki (Greece)
  • Tammi (Werner Söderström Oy), for translating and promoting the novel Efter åndemaneren by Kim Leine (Denmark)
  • Teattering Uusi Alkukirjasto ry, for translating and publishing the autofiction Angabe der Person by Elfriede Jelinek (Austria) 

Read more

Works funded by previous rounds of the grant, which have already found their way into Finnish readers’ hands, include Haava by Oksana Vasjakina, En pelkää mitään by Beatrice Salvioni and Maailman kauhea vihreys by Benjamín Labatut. All the books published so far under the grant can be found on our website. (in Finnish)

Alaiset (De Ansatte), a novel by Danish author Olga Ravn, was one of the first books to be published with funding from the Translating World Literature into Finnish grant. Read an interview with translator Sanna Manninen .

The next applications for the grant will be accepted in the foundation’s March 2025 round of applications. Read more about Translating World Literature into Finnish.

Translating words and ideas

In 2022, the Finnish Cultural Foundation launched a new form of support aimed at translating and bringing world literature to Finnish readers, especially from those original languages which are currently underrepresented in Finnish translations. 

Over the course of ten years, a total of EUR 1 million will be allocated, enabling the translation of one hundred high-quality contemporary books from around the world into Finnish. The translated works can include prose, poetry, or essays for adult readers.

For the years 2022 and 2023, the supported books’ original languages include Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Polish, French, and Estonian. One of the first books released was Olga Ravn’s Danish novel De Ansatte – The Employees in English and Alaiset in Finnish – translated by Sanna Manninen.

Nainen istuu kahvilan pöydän ääressä läppäri sylissään. Takana avautuu kaupunkinäkymä ikkunasta.

“As a translator, I am delighted that the Finnish Cultural Foundation has launched such a major project related to translating literature, especially from languages less translated into Finnish,” says Manninen.

At university Manninen studied general literature and later translation studies. After graduating she worked for a publishing house before becoming a freelance literary translator. Initially translating from Swedish to Finnish, she soon added Danish and Norwegian, which she learned in practice by reading books.

“Becoming a literary translator is a learning-by-doing process, but various courses and seminars for translators have also been very useful,” Manninen notes.

According to Manninen, the best part of being a Finnish translator is the chance to work with books. “Translating fiction into Finnish is also a very creative task, and as a profession, it offers great freedom.”

Most often, Manninen translates the books which publishing houses offer her. “In the Nordic countries, Finnish publishing houses have extensive contacts, but in many other language areas, more assistance is needed from translators in selecting books.”

Books translated from English dominate the market for translated literature in Finland. According to the Fennica database, in 2022, over half of the fiction translations published in Finland were from English, and just under a fifth were from Swedish. The remaining share comprises all the other languages in the world.

Manninen speculates that English translations are so common because the culture is familiar to Finns. Books translated from English might be easier to approach, therefore more are published. The same applies to Nordic books.

The less a language is known in Finland, the more important it is to translate works from that language into Finnish, she emphasises. Even if you know a foreign language well, entering the world of a literary work is entirely different when reading it in your own native language, interpreted by a skilled translator.

In addition to the Translating world literature into Finnish grants, the Finnish Cultural Foundation annually supports translators with regular grants. Manninen has received several grants from the Finnish Cultural Foundation for translating Nordic literature into Finnish.

The financial significance of a grant is big. “Money means time, and time means quality,” describes Manninen. Thanks to a grant there are more opportunities to refine the work, resulting in a better translation. A grant also encourages and motivates professional development.

Author Olga Ravn is known in Denmark especially as a poet. She has stated that she is not particularly interested in traditional forms of the novel. De Ansatte is a fragmentary, poetic text, not a traditional narrative novel. It features, for example, descriptions of strange, inanimate objects that appeal to all of the senses.

It was a fascinating challenge to translate. “It is really difficult to try to describe in Finnish unusual objects that do not exist in the real world.”

The work became easier when Manninen learned that the novel was based on texts Ravn wrote for an art exhibition catalogue, describing the exhibited works. Some of the objects described in the book had been on display at the exhibition, and pictures were available. This helped to find the right expressions.

De Ansatte is a critique of capitalism in the form of speculative fiction. It is a kind of existential sci-fi, describes Manninen, adding that the work may not necessarily reveal much about Denmark and the Danes but rather the thinking of one contemporary Danish author.

“That’s what translated literature is: it not only tells us what life is like in other countries but also how people think elsewhere.”

You can find the books published with our translation grant so far on our book gallery (in Finnish). 

Book Gallery