The following three Finnish translations of Japanese literature were published in January 2025. Here are short synopses of them. The actual blog articles can be read in English with the help of Google translator.

Kenji Miyazawa: Yö Linnunradan junassa ja muita tarinoita. Tr. by Markus Juslin. Illustr. by Pilvi Meriluoto. (collection of eleven stories by Kenji Miyazawa)

Kenji Miyazawa (1896–1933) was an eclectic who was ahead of his time. He was a writer and poet, agricultural teacher, a vegetarian, devout almost fanatic buddhist, amateur cellist as well as social utopist and activist. He had hobbies like biology, geology, astronomy and languages. He felt deep respect towards life and nature but also death was a recurrent topic in his writing. He wrote mostly stories and poetry, but he only became famous after his death. Today he is respected as one of the great names in Japanese literary canon.

The longest and most important story in the collection is Yö linnunradan junassa (Gingatetsudō no yoru, 銀河鉄道の夜, English: Night on the Galactic Railroad). In addition of being a charming story for children and adults it also goes to a deeper level by representing Miyasawa’s mission and view of world.

This collection, skilfully translated by Markus Juslin and beautifully illustrated by Pilvi Meriluoto gives Finnish readers a good chance to get to know Miyazawa and his fairytale-like world.

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Emi Yagi: Venus ja minä. Tr. by Raisa Porrasmaa. Japanese: Kyūkanbi no kanojotachi (休館日の彼女たち). English: When the Museum is Closed.

The Finnish translation of Emi Yagi´s ( b. 1988) book, skilfully done by Raisa Porrasmaa, was published before the English one. Interestingly, there is also a reference to Finland in it. The protagonist, a young woman called Rika, has learned Latin while in student exchange in Finland. She even had used Latin for discussions with her room mate and then further continued her studies in Japan. Now she is offered a job as a companion to a Venus statue in a museum. Her job is to talk in Latin with the statue who is frustrated in her loneliness. Sounds crazy, right? But that´s the kind of stuff Yagi´s books are made of and with this approach she is able to create a magical world reflecting the problems of the real world in an intriguing manner. In this book she touches the subject of alienation and loneliness, especially as experienced by young women in present day Japanese society; common themes in contemporary Japanese novels.

Venus ja minä is the second book of Emi Yagi, who has written her two books while working full time in a magazine. Quite an achievement!

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Osamu Dazai: Yllätysvieras ja muita novelleja. Tr. by Pekka Masonen. (collection of ten stories by Osamu Dazai)

This is the third consecutive year when Pekka Masonen tranlates and publishes a collection of Osamu Dazai´s stories. All his publications are self-published and they have a clear personal style. The characteristics of his work are for example really ample references and explanations after each story, lots of illustrations, personal choice of words and a special tone of voice between the lines. All this makes it possible for the reader to place the individual stories in wider cultural context and enjoy them more. If the frequent reference numbers in the text disrupt the reading flow, it is always possible to ignore them and read the explanations as a separate reading afterwards. (In many cases, however, the curiosity to check the details immediately may be too strong…) Well, everybody is free to find one´s own reading method.

Dazai´s colorful life had many turns. In the end of Masonen´ s book there is a chronological summary of Dazai´s life events as well as a list of his short story collections and novels. Masonen´s collections of short stories widen considerably the picture of Dazai for Finnish reading public, since the earlier picture was mainly based on his two final novels, The Setting Sun and No Longer Human that give a rather gloomy idea of him as a writer. There will more news on Dazai coming later this year.