The August 2014 issue of the magazine Words Without Borders contains my short story The Right Place (Sopiva paikka) expertly translated by Douglas Robinson. Glad to be featured!

You can read the whole issue online here: http://wordswithoutborders.org/current-issue/ and my story here: http://wordswithoutborders.org/article/the-right-place

A New North: Contemporary Writing from Finland

This month we present writing from Finland. Due to historic and linguistic circumstances, Finnish literature has received less attention in the English-speaking world than it merits. Our guest editor, the prominent Finnish translator Lola Rogers, has selected an exciting group of contemporary writers, many of whom appear in English for the first time. Leena Krohn’s depressed writer presents the reading from hell. In stories of parents and children, Mikko Rimminen finds unexpected obstacles on a train, and Shimo Suntila looks in on a single parent wrangling two rambunctious girls. Two pieces here bring history to life, as Sofi Oksanen pens a vivid recreation of the bombing of Talinn in 1940 and Antti Tuuri observes an expat Finnish construction crew working in Russia under the local Communist Party in 1930. Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen’s dementia patient loses his memory but develops second sight. Daniel Katz calculates the literal weight of words, while Maritta Lintunen’s librarian receives a package from the past. Tiina Laitila Kälvemark’s fragile woman struggles to recover her sanity. Kari Hotakainen’s multiple narrators struggle with anger and ennui. Joonas Konstig’s fretful young man seeks an appropriate setting for an important question. And Petri Tamminen acknowledges a lifelong trait.

”Sopiva paikka” is one of the three semi-autobiographical (sort of) stories with Karhu and Ella as main characters in my first book, the short story collection Ahneet ja viattomat (The Greedy and the Innocent, Gummerus 2008).