Saturday, December 30, 2006

Henry Parland

I was looking at the announcement for translation grants from the Finnish government. According to the list of grants, I am not the only person translating Henry Parland's writings right now. There were also people translating his work into French and Russian. His writings have previously been translated into Italian, German and Lithuanian. Sometimes it takes a while (Parland died in 1930).

Fredrik Hertzberg also has an interesting but brief article about Parland in the latest issue of Books from Finland. He points out the importance of Parland's polylingualism and draws a connection between Parland's fragmented style and Adorno's idea of dialectics.

4 Comments:

Blogger Tomasz Czepajtis said...

Hello, Johannes,

I was asked to research the last two years of Henry Parland's life in Kaunas (when he wrote his famous novel). A proposal came from the Russian researcher and translater Olga Meows. I was moved by this task, and want to recreate the atmosphere of Kaunas in 1928-30. and Parland's character (there are some funny episodes in Lithuanian book on him, "Spring in Kaunas", 2004, compiled by P.Palilionis)
Perhaps you know some articles already written on a subject? Then I'll concretize my task.
And, forgive me the question, where can I check, if the honorable Finnish governement also give grants for researches on Parland?
My interest is triple - I like Parland, I am a Lithuanian-Rusiian, and my father is from Kaunas, and my grandfather was a cinemamaker and was accused by Stalin of being a cosmopolite (Parland liked Soviet cinema and was called a cosmopolite).
I'll be grateful for any answer!
Tomasz Cz.
essayist, translator,
living in Vilnius, Lithuania
+370-5-2335740

6:57 AM  
Blogger Johannes said...

Oh, shoot. I didn't see this entry until a month later.

J

9:51 AM  
Blogger Johannes said...

Tomasz,

Please write to me at johannesgoransson at gmail dot com and we can discuss this further. The short answer is that there is a book in Swedish called "Krapula" which does a good job of documenting Parland's life in Finland as well as Kaunas. There are of course his own descriptions in various letters etc. Also, I have some material that you may be interested in (for example photos that he took).

9:55 AM  
Blogger matsrep said...

Hi Johannes and hi Tomasz,

I've done some research on Parland's life and writings. I did the book "Krapula" that Johannes mentions etc.

The lithuanian research sounds interesting - there is more work to do. I've got a few volumes of Krapula - you can mail me at per dot stam at comhem dot se .

I had an article, »Henry Parland in Lithuania», in Vilnius.
Lithuanian Literature Culture History. Magazine of the Lithuanian Writer’s Union, Winter 1996, also translated into Lithuanian: »Henri Parlandis Lietuvoje», Metai. Literatura, Kritika, Eseistika nr 10 1998 (mentioned in Palilionis foreword to Spring in Kaunas").

Per

5:33 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home