The Nordic Reader

In today’s episode we are joined by our editor and social media guru Hanna Todd to reflect on some highlights from the first season of the podcast.Books Mentioned:Katabasis - R.F. KuangBabel - R.F. KuangThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg LarssonThe Year of the Hare - Arto PaasilinnaUnknown Soldiers - Väinö LinnaThe Red Book of Farewells - Pirkko SaisioThe Wall - Marlen HaushoferSummer Fishing in Lapland - Juhani KarilaEsther the Butcher - Mariia NiskavaaraThe Wizard of the Kremlin - Giuliano Da EmpoliHost and producer: Mia ToddCo-host: Francis NealeEditing and marketing: Hanna Todd

In today’s episode of The Nordic Reader, we are joined by award winning author Sofi Oksanen. Sofi is author of six novels, a number of plays and librettos, essays, poetry and non-fiction works. Her books have been translated into 45 languages and have sold more than 2 million copies across the globe. Her work has been awarded multiple prizes, including the Finlandia Prize and the Runeberg Prize in Finland, the Prix Femina Ètranger and the Prix du Roman in France, The European Book Prize, The Swedish Academy Nordic Prize and the Budapest Grand Prize, to name but a few. With her strong social commentary and commitment to revealing the dark underbelly of the world, Sofi’s novels have been compared to the likes of Charles Dickens and Margret Atwood. In today’s episode, we talk about Sofi’s most recent novel Dog Park, a thriller set in Helsinki and post-Soviet Ukraine. Published in Finnish in 2019, the English translation is by Owen F. Witesman and was published in 2021 by Atlantic Books in the UK and by Alfred A. Knopf in the US. Books mentioned: Dog Park - Sofi Oksanen Purge - Sofi OksanenWhen the Doves Disappeared - Sofi OksanenThe Orphanage - Serhiy Zhadan Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II - Svetlana AlexievichOn The Calculation of Volume III - Solvej Balle Guest: Sofi OksanenHost and producer: Mia ToddCo-host: Francis NealeEditing and marketing: Hanna Todd

In this, the 9th episode of The Nordic Reader podcast, we discuss Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book. First published in Swedish in 1972, it has been translated into English by Thomas Teal.Tove Jansson is probably Finland’s most famous author, known as the creator of the now-iconic Moomins. Part of the Swedish speaking minority in Finland, she was a notable illustrator and painter, as well as a writer. She published her first Moomin book in 1945. It was an immense success, and she followed it up with several more books in close succession.In this episode, we talk about one of her most well-known books for adults, The Summer Book. Set on an island in the Finnish archipelago, The Summer Book tells the story of a grandmother and her six year old granddaughter, Sofia, who is staying with her over the summer. Through a series of short chapters, Tove Jansson captures the adventures, discussions and moments that grandmother and granddaughter experience over the course of the summer.Books mentioned:The Summer Book - Tove JanssonA Winter Book - Tove JanssonThe Ministry of Time - Kaliane BradleyThe Diary of a Madman - Nikolay GogolThe Kiss - Anton ChekovLowest Common Denominator - Pirkko SaisioIntroduction read by Hanna ToddHost and producer: Mia ToddCo-host: Francis NealeEditing and marketing: Hanna Todd

In today’s episode we are joined by author Mariia Niskavaara to talk about her debut novel, Esther, the Butcher. Published in Finnish in October 2025, the English translation by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson is expected to be published in February 2027. Mariia is an art historian and museum curator turned author. Alongside her work at the Finnish National Gallery and the Modern Art Museum in Espoo, she has recently finished her PhD at the University of Helsinki, where she wrote her thesis on the aesthetics of meat, the body, and decay. Esther, the Butcher won the prestigious Helsingin Sanomat Debut of the Year prize last year, and was shortlisted for the Runeberg Prize. The book has also attracted significant international attention, and translation rights have been sold in 30 territories.Mariia’s agents, Bonnier Rights Finland, offer this description of the novel: “From childhood, Esther rehearses life outside her parents’ butcher shop—pushing a baby doll under her dress, waddling until it tumbles onto the asphalt before bewildered customers.Years later, Esther becomes a butcher herself, gifted with an uncanny ability to understand the language of meat. Yet her craft cannot satisfy the fierce longing that consumes her: the desire to reproduce. When an artificial inseminator enters her life, hope flickers—but no child comes. Under the gaze of a small-town community, Esther moves through life as if on a surreal theatre stage, her lonely room pulsing with the joys and sorrows of the world.”Books Mentioned: Esther, the Butcher - Mariia NiskavaaraGlass, Irony and God - Anne CarsonBitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal - Lucy CookeOpen Heavens - Jonas Eika (to be published in English in 2027)Hot Milk - Deborah LevyThe Dog Stars - Peter HellerFever - Deon MeyerThe Summer Book - Tove JanssonGuest: Mariia NiskavaaraProducer and Host: Mia ToddCo-host: Francis NealeEditing and Marketing: Hanna Todd

In today’s episode of The Nordic Reader, we are joined by literary translator Mia Spangenberg to chat about her translation of Pirkko Saisio’s Lowest Common Denominator. Originally published in Finnish in 1998, Mia’s English translation is published by Two Lines Press in the US, and by Penguin Random House in the UK. Mia translates from Finnish, German and Swedish into English. After studying German and Russian literature during her undergraduate years, she went on to get her PhD in Scandinavian studies, with a focus on Finnish literature and cultural studies. Mia graduated from the FILI Finnish to English literary translation mentorship programme in 2017, and translates fiction, non-fiction and children’s literature. In 2021, she received an honourable mention for the Nadia Christensen Prize for an excerpt of her translation of Pirkko Saisio’s The Red Book of Farewells, and in 2024, she won this same prize for an excerpt of her translation of Lowest Common Denominator. Pirkko Saisio is one of Finland’s most iconic writers. An author, actress and director, Saisio has been nominated for Finland’s most prestigious literary prize, the Finlandia award, 7 times. She won it in 2003 for The Red Book of Farewells, the third volume of her Helsinki Trilogy. Her work has also won numerous other awards, including the J. H. Erkko Award, the Aleksis Kivi Prize and State Literature Award, amongst others. In Lowest Common Denominator, Pirkko Saisio transports us to the 1950s Finland of her youth, where she navigates life as an only child of communist parents. Convinced she will grow up to become a man, a young Pirkko keeps trying and failing to meet the expectations of the adults around her.With wit and style, Saisio captures the heart-wrenching intensity of childhood feeling, merging fever dreams with sensory-laden memories as each formative experience – with the Big Bad Wolf, a bikini-clad circus announcer, and Jesus Christ himself – drives her further and further from her family and others. Struggling to understand her place in the world around her, it’s in language that she discovers a refuge and a way to be seen at last.Find more information about Mia’s work here: https://www.miaspangenberg.com/See more of Mia’s translations here: https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2026-06/a-sami-womans-sin-imagining-other-peoples-sex-lives-west-spangenberg/ Books Mentioned: Lowest Common Denominator - Pirkko SaisioBacklight - Pirkko SaisioThe Red Book of Farewells - Pirkko SaisioI Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline HarpmanThe Wall - Marlen HaushoferThe Inheritors - William GoldingThe Mirror Visitor Quartet - Christelle DabosThe Letter for the King - Tonke DragtMy Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante Guest: Mia SpangenbergProducer and Host: Mia ToddCo-host: Francis NealeEditing and Marketing: Hanna Todd