About the Book
Tua Forsstrom is a visionary Finland-Swedish poet who has become Finland's most celebrated contemporary poet. Her poetry draws its sonorous and plangent music from the landscapes of Finland, seeking harmony between the troubled human heart and the threatened natural world. One Evening in October I Rowed Out on the Lake is her first new collection since her celebrated trilogy, I studied once at a wonderful faculty, published by Bloodaxe in 2006. As Sweden's August Prize jury commented, this is poetry 'both melancholy and impassioned', expressing a 'struggle against meaninglessness, disintegration, destruction - against death in life'.
About the Author :
Tua Forsstrm was born in 1947 in Borg and currently lives in Helsinki. A much acclaimed Finland-Swedish poet, she has won major literary honours in Sweden as well as Finland. In 2019 she was elected a member of the Swedish Academy. She published her first book in 1972, En dikt om krleck och annat (A Poem About Love and Other Things), followed by Dr anteckningarna slutar (Where the Notes End, 1974), Egentligen r vi mycket lyckliga (Actually We Are Very Happy, 1976), Tallrt (Yellow Bird's-nest, 1979), and September (September, 1983). Tua Forsstrm achieved wider recognition with her sixth collection, Snleopard (Snow Leopard, 1987), notably in Sweden and in Britain, where David McDuff's translation (Bloodaxe Books, 1990) received a Poetry Book Society Translation Award. Marianergraven (The Marianer Trench, 1990) was followed by Parkerna (The Parks, 1992), which won the Swedish Academy's Finland Prize and was nominated for both the major Swedish literary award, the August Prize (rare for a Finland-Swedish writer) and for Finland's major literary award, the Finland Prize (now given only for prose). Efter att ha tillbringat en natt bland hstar (After Spending a Night Among Horses) appeared in 1997, for which she was awarded the Nordic Council Literature Prize (1998). She won the Swedish Academy's Bellman Prize in 2003 and 2018. In 2003 she published her trilogy, Jag studerade en gng vid en underbar fakultat (I studied once at a wonderful faculty), whose English translation by David McDuff and Stina Katchadourian was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2006. This combines her three collections Snow Leopard, The Parks and After Spending a Night Among Horses with a new sequence, Minerals. She has since published three further collections, Snger (Songs, 2006); En kvll i oktober rodde jag ut p sjn (2012), published in a dual language edition with David McDuff's translation as One Evening in October I Rowed Out on the Lake (Bloodaxe Books, 2015); and Anteckningar (2018), published in a dual language edition with David McDuff's translation as I walked on into the forest: poems for a little girl (Bloodaxe Books, 2021). Other awards given to Tua Forsstrm include the Edith Sdergran Prize (1991), Pro Finlandia Medal (1991), Gteborgs-Postens poetry prize (1992), Gerald Bonnier poetry prize (1993), Tollanderska Prize (1998) and Naim Frasheri Award (2012). She has also been nominated for the European Aristeion Prize. Her poetry has been translated into several languages, including Albanian, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Norwegian, Serbian and Spanish.
Review :
'Icy intensity - aphoristic as well as mystical - a fragility that is wholly particular - Forsstrom's visions of loneliness and despair are tempered by a lyrical pluckiness - the tenderness of snow' - Adam Thorpe, Observer. 'Tua Forsstrom's poems give a sense of having crystallised under a great pressure - a survey of the landscape of grief, exercises in renunciation and in the affirmation of loss of love, sexuality and communion with others - She belongs to a tradition that includes Rilke, Holderlin, Paul Celan and the great Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelof' - Claes Andersson. 'Forsstrom has a superb ability to use the everyday and the practical to get closer to the most complicated elements of life. Her language constantly goes through changes allowing the usual meanings of the words to be replaced by new insights which are a kind of magic ritual. Just like a Native American shaman, she can surely bring forth rain with her poetry if she wishes' - Gustaf Widen, Hofvustadsbladet.
