Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

Under the midday sun: participants of the Writers' Reunion in 2005

Next month sees a new International Writers’ Reunion at Messilä Manor in  the city of Lahti in central Finland. The first such meeting was organised in 1963.

Since then, more than a thousand writers, translators, journalists, critics and other book people, Finnish and foreign, have met for a few days every other year just before Midsummer to discuss various topics.

And the nights are light, and long, and the talking goes on.

This time the theme is ‘The writer beyond words’: how will the writer meet the limits of language and narration? (More on the topic in our article Beyond words.) The meeting takes place between 19 and 21 June.

So far about twenty writers, from Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Lithuania, Norway, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden and Udmurtia, are expected to arrive, as are some 20 Finnish participants. All debates and poetry evenings are open to the general public free of charge.