New Finnish Grammar

by Diego Marani, Judith Landry (Translator)

One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can identify him. When he regains consciousness he has lost his memory and cannot even remember what language he speaks. From a few things found on the man, the doctor, who is originally from Finland, believes him to be a sailor and a fellow countryman, who somehow or other has ended up in Trieste. The doctor dedicates himself to teaching the man Finnish, beginning the reconstruction of the identity of Sampo Karjalainen, leading the missing man to return to Finland in search of his identity and his past.

New Finnish Grammar won three literary prizes in Italy; the Premio Grinzane Cavour, Premio Ostia Mare and Premio Giuseppe Desi. Judith Landry's translation won The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize 2012 and was shortlisted for The Independent Foreign Fiction Award 2012. In the USA it was shortlisted for The Best Translated Book Award.

187 pages, Paperback

Published July 31, 2021

About the author

Diego Marani works as a senior linguist for the European Union in Brussels.
Every week he writes a column for a Swiss newspaper in Europanto, a language he has invented. He also published a collection of short stories in Europanto, in France.
In Italian he has published six novels, the most recent being l'Amico della Donna.

Reviews

[Louis Edward · Rating 3 out of 5]

First two thirds were fantastic, if a little pretentious. Struggled with the final third and felt it didn’t have enough plot to keep me in as it went on.

[Joel Silverberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful book about language, memory, home, and the Finnish people. Having lived abroad for roughly a third of my life, I loved the last pages:

"Sooner or later, the globetrotter who leaps from one identity to another like an acrobat on a trapeze will lose his footing, find himself down on the ground, pinned down, well-travelled though he be, by the memory of a few houses and a dusty road. When the hour of death draws near, even those who have spent their whole lives claiming they do not have a country will hear the sudden call of the place where everything began, and where they know they are awaited. There, and there only, everything will always be the same, each smell, each colour, each sound in its right place. When we go home, memory vanishes; and, with it, pain. When end and beginning meet, it means nothing has happened. All was a dream within another dream, and perhaps man too is the stuff of dreams"

[Simon Slidders · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times thought I might give this a 4 star rating, but until I have had more time to mull it over a 3 star. The whole idea of a man constructing his life purely based on learning a language is fascinating, and the translation is really beautiful, conveying both rhythm and poetry .

[Crista · Rating 5 out of 5]

Original, surprising, engaging. Identity, language, memory.

[John Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was unique and original! Looking forward to reading more by this author.