1. art and entertainment
2. books and literature

foreign
rights
Books from the
Society of Swedish
Literature in Finland
Society of Swedish Literature in Finland
SLS publishes approximately 15 titles each year
Scholarship and culture
T
he Society of Swedish Literature
in Finland (SLS) is a non-profit
scholarly society founded in 1885. Its
purpose is to disseminate knowledge
about Finland’s Swedish-language
culture.
SLS publishes works of scholarship and nonfiction about the culture, language, society and history of
­Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority.
Swedish is the Society’s principal language of publication. SLS also specializes in scholarly, annotated editions of
works by literary authors and of historical source material such as letters,
diaries and travel books.
SLS is one of the leading publishers of
critical editions in the Nordic region
and is a pioneer in the development
of digital publishing platforms for
such editions.
In addition to book publishing,
SLS maintains archives and libraries,
supports research, and awards literary
and research prizes and scholarships.
SLS’s activity is made possible by private donations. Today, SLS is one of the
largest managers of private charitable
funds in Finland.
in
Swedish
Finland-Swedish culture
Swedish is one of Finland’s two
national languages, enjoying equal
official status with Finnish. A large
number of organizations and media
operate in Swedish. The Swedish-­
speaking population is entitled to
– inter alia – education, health care
and government service in their own
mother tongue.
The Swedish-speaking minority
makes up about 6% of the population.
Sustainable publishing
SLS
places great emphasis both
on the editorial processing
of its books and on their graphic design. The publisher’s motto – “Sustainable Publishing” – stands for a high
level of scholarship and non-fiction
writing, continuity over time, and
­environmental awareness in production.
All publications have undergone
peer review. Several of SLS’s authors
have won national and international
awards, and many titles have been
acknowledged for their graphic
­design.
Most of the books are richly illustrated, and a large share of the pictures come from SLS’s own extensive
archives.
A number of SLS’s titles reach the
book market in Sweden through collaboration with Swedish publishers.
Georg August Wallin
Scholarly editions
D
uring the 1840s the Orientalist G.A.
Wallin travelled in the Middle East
in order to collect material on Arabic
dialects. Wallin was born in Åland and
studied Oriental literature in Helsinki
and St. Petersburg – Finland was then a
Grand Duchy of Russia. Wallin’s teacher
in St. Petersburg, Sheikh Mohammad
al-Tantawi of Egypt, inspired him to
conduct research into spoken Arabic.
For seven years Wallin travelled in
Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, the Sinai
Peninsula, Persia and Syro-Palestine
to gather material for his research
and document the everyday life of
the population. His unique material is
preserved in diaries and letters, as well
as in notes made in Swedish but with
Arabic script. In order to make contact
with the population he disguised himself
as a Muslim under an assumed identity,
and was therefore also able to visit
Mecca and Medina.
After his travels Wallin was appointed Professor of Oriental Literature in
Helsinki. He was viewed as an eminent
scholar by his contemporaries, and he
published a few articles in English and
German. But shortly after his return
to Finland he died, and his research
material, written in Swedish, remained
inaccessible to the international research
community.
The publication of the material as a
scholary edition is under way (see next
page).
Georg August Wallin
Skrifter (Writings)
Edited by Kaj Öhrnberg
and Patricia Berg
Skrifter is a scholarly edition of
Wallin’s posthumous papers. Each
volume contains articles that contextualize the material. The diaries, letters
and notes are accompanied by an
extensive critical apparatus.
1. Studietiden och resan till Alexandria
(Student years and journey to
Alexandria), 455pp., 2010,
ISBN 978-951-583-189-7
2. Det första året i Egypten 1843–1844
(The first year in Egypt 1843–1844),
465 pp., 2011,
ISBN 978-951-583-227-6
3. Kairo och resan till Övre
Egypten 1844–1845
(Cairo and journey to Upper Egypt 1844–1845), 482 pp., 2012,
ISBN 978-951-583-249-8
4. Färderna till Mekka och
Jerusalem 1845–1847
(Journey to Mecca and Jerusalem 1845–1847), 535 pp., 2013,
ISBN 978-951-583-269-6
5.Norra Arabiska halvön och
Persien 1847–1849
(Northern Arabian Peninsula
and Persia 1847–1849),
circa 550 pp., 2014, ISBN 978-951-583-285-6
6.Alexandria och London 1849–1850
(Alexandria and London 1849–1850), forthcoming 2015
7.Helsingfors 1850–1852
(Helsinki 1850–1852),
forthcoming 2016
Dolce far niente in Arabia
Georg August Wallin and
his travels in the 1840s
ed. Nina Edgren-Henrichson
Georg August Wallin’s life and travels
in Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula and
Persia are presented in four articles by
Patricia Berg, Sofia Häggman, Jaakko
Hämeen-Anttila and Kaj Öhrnberg
­respectively. Wallin’s impact as an
ethnographic observer and linguistic
scholar is also examined.
circa 150 pp., 2014,
ISBN 978-951-583-290-0
Published in English in collaboration
with Museum Tusculanum Press
Sofia Häggman
”Alldeles hemlikt”
Georg August Wallins
Egypten 1843–1845
(“Quite like home”. The Egypt of
Georg August Wallin, 1843–1845)
Cairo was Georg August Wallin’s base
for his expeditions in the Middle East.
With Wallin’s vivid travel diaries as a
guide, the Egyptologist Sofia Häggman
follows his footsteps from the alleys of
Alexandria streets and the caravanserai of Cairo to the villages and ancient
monuments of the Egyptian countryside. What did Wallin see there, and
what remains of it today?
463 pp., 2011,
ISBN 978-951-583-231-3
Henry Parland,
Writings
Henry Parland
Sönder (om framkallning
av Veloxpapper)
Scholarly editions
(Henry Parland, Skrifter)
(To Pieces (on the developing
of Velox paper))
H
The fictional Henry Parland decides to
write a book about his dead girlfriend
Ami. It is easier said than done – her
­image escapes him even though he
relives their time together from photo­
graphs. To Pieces is a meta-novel
inspired by Marcel Proust and Russian
Formalism, but also a love story and a
novel about the Helsinki of the 1920s.
Henry Parland wrote the novel for a
competition, but died a few months
before the competition deadline.
hardback: 201 pp., 2005,
ISBN 951-583-120-2
paperback (without critical notes):
145 pp., 2014,
ISBN 978-951-583-277-1
enry Parland (1908–1930) was one
of the leading modernists writing
in Swedish in Finland and perhaps the
most modern of them all. He was especially interested in urban phenomena
like technology, advertising and cinema,
and was Finland’s first real film critic.
Parland’s novel Sönder (To Pieces) has
been translated into German, English,
Finnish, French, Russian, Spanish and
Lithuanian. Selections of his poetry
have also appeared in a number of languages, including English and German.
A critical edition of Sönder appeared in
2005. In 2015 SLS will begin the publication of Parland’s complete works.
Edith Södergran’s
collected writings
(Edith Södergrans samlade skrifter)
E
dith Södergran (1892–1923) was the
first real modernist poet in Nordic
literature. Her debut collection Dikter
(Poems, 1916) is considered to be the
beginning of the strong modernist
tradition in Finland’s Swedish-language
poetry. She was influenced by German
Expressionism, French Symbolism and
Russian Futurism and in 1919 became
the first European woman to publish a
literary manifesto. Södergran published
four collections of poetry and a collection of aphorisms. Her collection Landet
som icke är (The Land That is Not, 1925)
was published posthumously. She is one
of Finland’s best known and most translated writers and one of the most widely
read poets in the Nordic region.
Edith Södergran
Dikter och aforismer
(Poems and Aphorisms)
Successive generations have absorbed
Edith Södergran’s poems. The paperback edition of Dikter och aphorismer
contains all of her Swedish-language
work, while the hardcover edition also
contains the German-language poems
she wrote in her youth.
hardback: 376 pp., 1990,
ISBN 951-9018-61-1
paperback: 361 pp., 2014,
ISBN 978-951-583-278-8
Scholarly editions
The Writings of
Zacharias Topelius
(Zacharias Topelius Skrifter)
Z
acharias Topelius (1818–1898)
was an author, newspaper editor,
social activist and university professor.
His work, spanning seven decades, is a
written monument to nineteenth century Finland, and is unique in its scope.
His literary output was exceptionally
versatile and included historical novels,
poems, hymns, newspaper articles,
short stories and school textbooks.
SLS is publishing Topelius’s printed
works and other literary remains in ­a
scholarly and annotated edition that
also includes letters, diaries and lectures. The project was begun in 2005,
and a large share of the works will be
published before the bicentenary of
Topelius’s birth in 2018. Each volume of
the edition is accompanied by an introduction highlighting the background to
the texts and their importance both for
present-day readers and for posterity.
The edition is digital, but an extensive
selection is also being published in
print.
The online edition is available for
free use at www.topelius.fi.
Illustration by Carl Larsson for Zacharias Topelius’s fairytale play Fågel Blå
(Blue Bird), from Läsning för barn (the Readings for Children series).
History of literature
Finlands svenska litteratur
1900–2012
(Finland’s Swedish literature
1900–2012)
ed. Michel Ekman
Literature written in Swedish has a long
tradition in Finland, and during much
of the nineteenth century it dominated
the literary scene. Since the early twentieth century Swedish literature in Finland has more or less acquired the status of a minority literature, and exists
in parallel with the majority literature
written in Finnish. Prominent names
among Finland’s Swedish-language
writers include Edith Södergran, Tove
Jansson, Bo Carpelan, Märta Tikkanen,
Kjell Westö and Monika Fagerholm.
How and why did Swedish literature
in Finland become Finland-Swedish?
The book follows the development of
Finland-Swedish literature from its
new beginnings and the rise of the
modernists in the first two decades of
the twentieth century to the writers ­
of today.
376 pp., 2014,
ISBN 978-951-583-272-6
A German edition is published
in collaboration with
BuchKunst Kleinheinrich:
Finnlands schwedische Literatur
1900–2012
ISBN 978-951-583-289-4
Helsingfors i ord och bild – Huvudstaden kring sekelskiftet 1900
(Helsinki in words and pictures – The capital at the turn of the century, 1900)
ed. Lari Assmuth, Anne-May Berger, Nora Ervalahti & Marika Rosenström
In the late nineteenth century Finland’s
capital Helsinki underwent many changes wrought by urbanization and industrialization. Life in the growing city was
documented by a number of talented
amateur photographers. The writers of
that time found inspiration in an urban
environment that was both fascinating
and frightening. An evocative blend of
photographs and literary quotations
from Helsinki in the period from 1880
to 1910.
176 pages, 2012,
ISBN 978-951-583-257-3
History
Henrika Tandefelt
Borgå 1809 – ceremoni och fest
(Porvoo 1809 – ceremony
and celebration)
Nils Erik Villstrand
Furstar och folk Åbo 1812
(Princes and people, Turku 1812)
The Napoleonic Wars redrew the map
of Europe. One of the consequences
was that Finland, which had previously been part of the Swedish kingdom,
­became an autonomous part of the
Russian Empire. Tsar Alexander I met
his new subjects for the first time
in Porvoo in 1809. During a solemn
parliamentary session with associated
ceremonies and celebrations, the new
order was consolidated. Another
meeting took place in Turku in 1812
– between Alexander I and the Swedish
Crown Prince Karl Johan, about whom
the people were curious: Would he
reunite the kingdom? The main political
significance of the meeting lay in the
two princes’ agreement to join forces
in fighting Napoleon’s army, while the
cornerstone of Sweden’s new foreign
policy was laid.
Tandefelt: 187 pp., 2009,
ISBN 978-951-583-175-0
Villstrand: 167 pp., 2012,
ISBN 978-951-583-251-1
Max Engman
Gränsfall
Utväxlingar och gränstrafik
på Karelska näset 1918–1920
(Borderline case. Exchanges
and border traffic on the
Karelian Isthmus 1918–1920)
A book about secret contacts between
Finland, Soviet Russia and the wider
world during the turbulent years after
the Russian Revolution and Finland’s
Declaration of Independence in 1917.
Formally a state of war existed between
the two countries until 1920. The
border zone was in principle closed,
but in practice traffic was brisk – secret
negotiations took place, prisoners and
hostages were exchanged, military
personnel, politicians, diplomats and
agents passed to and fro.
540 pp., 2008,
ISBN 978-951-583-148-4
Kari Tarkiainen
Sveriges Österland
Från forntiden till Gustav Vasa
Finlands svenska historia 1
(Sweden’s Eastland.
From antiquity to Gustav Vasa,
Finland’s Swedish history vol. 1)
Nils-Erik Villstrand
Riksdelen
Stormakt och rikssprängning
1560–1812
Finlands svenska historia 2
(A part of the realm. Great power
and breakup 1560–1812 Finland’s
Swedish history vol. 2)
Finland and Sweden have a long shared
history. What is now Finland was part
of the Swedish kingdom for six hundred
years until 1809, and Finland still has a
Swedish-speaking minority. The series
Finland’s Swedish history describes how
the country’s society, politics, economy,
settlement, language situation, church
and culture have been affected by
Swedish influences since the Middle
Ages.
The first volume in the series deals
with the period leading up the consoli­
dation of the Swedish kingdom under
King Gustav Vasa in the mid-sixteenth
century, when Finland – initially known
as Österland, the “Eastland” – became
an integral part of the kingdom. The
second volume begins in the 1560s,
when Sweden made its entrance as a
Baltic power and eventually became
a European great power. This volume
goes up to 1812, the year when in the
aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars
Sweden finally renounced its claims to
Finland, which had been lost to Russia
in 1809.
Volume 3 deals with how the language question – the ever-growing
importance of Finnish in the emerging
national movement and the gradually
increasing linguistic awareness among
the Swedish-speaking population
– permeated the development of
society during the nineteenth century,
when Finland was a Grand Duchy under
Russia. Swedish was the country’s
official language until the 1860s, when
a language law stated that Finnish
should have equal status with Swedish.
Meanwhile the Church had functioned
in both national languages since the
Reformation. This volume ends in 1922,
when as a new, independent republic
Finland acquired a new language law
that guaranteed equal rights to both
language groups. The fourth and final
instalment in the series describes the
position of Swedish from 1922 until the
early 2000s, with the rise and waning
of language conflicts, and the linguistic
separation of organizations in most
areas of society. However, the period
was also marked by a stronger Nordic
orientation at a collective level and by
increasing bilingualism at an individual
one. This trend reflects the political
circumstances that affected the whole
of Finland’s development during the
twentieth century. Volumes 3 and 4 will
appear in Swedish in 2015.
Tarkiainen: 334 pp., 2008,
ISBN 978-951-583-155-2
Villstrand: 416 pp., 2009,
ISBN 978-951-583-184-2
Forthcoming: Max Engman,
Språkfrågan 1812–1922,
Finlands svenska historia 3
(The language question 1812–1922,
Finland’s Swedish history vol. 3)
Forthcoming: Henrik Meinander,
Finlandssvenska kontexter efter 1922,
Finlands svenska historia 4
(Finland-Swedish contexts after 1922,
Finland’s Swedish history vol. 4)
Journeys in distant lands
R.F. Sahlberg
En resa kring jorden 1839–1843.
Anteckningar från Sydamerika,
Alaska och Sibirien
(A journey around the world, 1839–
1843. Notes from South America,
Alaska and Siberia)
Edited by Patricia Berg
The Helsinki naturalist R. F. Sahlberg
planned to travel to Brazil to collect
natural specimens for his research and
for the university. But on the way he
was persuaded to accompany the ship
to Sitka in Alaska, which was then a
part of Russia. There he served for a
year as a doctor before beginning his
journey home – via Siberia. Throughout
his entire world trip he kept a detailed
diary for his fiancée, who awaited him
at home.
531 p, 2007,
ISBN 978-951-583-154-5
C.F. Hornstedt
Brev från Batavia.
En resa till Ostindien 1782–1786
(Letters from Batavia. A journey
to the East Indies 1782–1786)
Edited by Christina Granroth
with Patricia Berg and
Maren Jonasson
Inspired by Linnaus, the botanist and
physician C. F. Hornstedt travelled to
Java in order to collect natural history
specimens. In addition to descriptions
of nature his letters from the journey
also contain observations on the social
life of colonial Batavia and colourful
depictions of the city’s Chinese population, especially their religious feasts,
music and theatre. The letters are
addressed to his teacher, the Linnaeus
disciple C.P. Thunberg.
418 pp., 2008,
ISBN 978-951-583-160-6
The neighbour in the south
Kari Tarkiainen & Ülle Tarkiainen
Provinsen bortom havet
Estlands svenska historia
1561–1710
(The province across the sea. Estonia’s
Swedish history 1561–1710)
Estonia was a Swedish province for
nearly 150 years, a period that coincided with Sweden’s era as a great power.
In the Baltic provinces this period was
marked by recurrent wars, famines and
epidemics of plague. At the same time
society developed through reforms
in education, the Church, justice and
agriculture. The authors balance a
Swedish perspective with an Estonian
and a Baltic German one. How did the
Swedes wish to shape this province on
the other side of the Baltic Sea, what
did Swedish rule mean to the serfs on
the estates of the Baltic German nobility, and how did the nobility behave
towards the Swedish authorities? The
Swedish period in Estonian history re-
ceives a vivid portrayal that is based on
recent Estonian, Swedish and Finnish
research in the field.
379 pp., 2013,
ISBN 978-951-583-265-8
The lives of artists
Helene Schjerfbeck
Och jag målar ändå
Brev till Maria Wiik 1907–1928
(And still I paint. Letters to
Maria Wiik 1907–1928)
Edited by Lena Holger
Jean Sibelius
Dagbok 1909–1944
(Diary 1909–1944)
Edited by Fabian Dahlström
The composer Jean Sibelius and his musical life’s work appear in a new light in
his highly personal diary. The extensive
notes and commentary are by Professor Emeritus Fabian Dahlström, who
has previously published the definitive
annotated catalogue of Sibelius’s works
and is principal editor of the critical
edition of Sibelius’s complete works.
555 pp., 2005,
ISBN 951-583-125-3
Tomi Mäkelä
Friedrich Pacius
Ein deutscher
Komponist in Finnland
Mit einer Edition der Tagebücher,
Briefe und Arbeitsmaterialien
von Silke Bruns
Friedrich (Frederick) Pacius, born in
Hamburg, 1809, had more influence
on Nordic cultural life than any other
German composer. His setting of J.L.
Runeberg’s Vårt Land (Maamme, Our
land) became Finland’s national anthem.
Pacius also wrote the music for the
first Finnish opera, Kung Karls jakt
(The hunt of King Charles), with libretto
by Zacharias Topelius. The book includes
a biography of Pacius and a selection of
his letters and diaries in an annotated
edition.
Circa 550 pp., 2014,
ISBN: 978-951-583-279-5 (Finland)
ISBN: 978-3-487-15111-3 (Germany)
Published in German in collaboration
with Georg Olms Verlag
Nowadays Helene Schjerfbeck’s
­paintings fetch millions of euros at
auctions across Europe. But her French-­
influenced, impressionistic work found
little comprehension in early twentieth
century Finland, where art was influenced by the national romanticism of
the time. In her letters to her fellow
artist and friend Maria Wiik we can
share her thoughts about her painting,
other artists, her search for models, her
reading experiences, her yearning for
France and her longing to escape, but
also on subjects like famine, cold and
loneliness.
301 p, 2011,
ISBN 978-951-583-233-7
S o c i e t y o f S w e d i s h L i t e r at u r e i n f i nl a n d
Society of Swedish
Literature in Finland
Post Box 158
FI-00171 Helsinki
FINLAND
[email protected]
+358 9 618 777
Foreign rights
Liisa Hakamies-Blomqvist
Head of Publishing
[email protected]
+358 9 618 775 55
+358 40 547 96 04
www.sls.fi
Society of Swedish Literature in Finland