Aleksis Kivi's Seven Brothers is basically the classic Finnish novel -- but its impact abroad has been ... not so impressive.
My review is of the very creaky 1929 translation, and there's been another one since then, but neither helped the book break through in English -- so they're giving it another go, as Dedalus has announced a Translation Competition for The Seven Brothers, as:
It certainly poses a translation challenge, but it also has a lot of potential, so I hope many enterprising Finnish translators will have a go at this.
Dedalus in association with FILI is running a competition to translate The Seven Brothers by Aleksius Kivi for the Dedalus European Classics Series and is inviting translators to take part by translating the first chapter of the book.They suggest:
a new English translation is long overdue and will be a major cultural event.That's certainly ... at least half right -- but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the other half will be right, too.
It certainly poses a translation challenge, but it also has a lot of potential, so I hope many enterprising Finnish translators will have a go at this.