On the corner of Nervanderinkatu and Dagmarinkatu in central Helsinki, you’ll find the Arkadia International Bookshop. As you enter the shop, you will find yourself in a large, cosy room, with couches, a piano, and floor to ceiling bookshelves on every wall. The store sells second hand books, mostly in English, both fiction and non-fiction. But if you explore, you will enter a maze, with room after room of books in multiple languages, including Swedish, Finnish, French, Spanish, German, Russian, and Hungarian. But perhaps the most iconic feature is the store's owner, Ian Bourgeot. In today’s episode of The Nordic Reader, we are joined by Ian to discuss Diego Marani’s novel, New Finnish Grammar. Published by Daedalus books and translated into English by Judith Landry, New Finnish Grammar was shortlisted for the 2012 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2012 Best Translated Book Award. Set during World War II, the novel follows a young man who wakes up in a doctor’s office in Trieste having suffered a catastrophic head injury. He cannot remember anything. The attending doctor, Friari, is a Finn living in Germany whose family had fled their homeland following its civil war. Finding a Finnish name sewn into the young man’s jacket, Dr Friari assumes he is Finnish. As he recovers, Friari begins to teach him Finnish, hoping that his memories will return with the language. Soon Friari arranges for the young man to travel to Helsinki. There he befriends the eccentric priest Olaf Koskela, and the lovely nurse Ilma, as he continues to search for his place in the world. Books Mentioned: New Finnish Grammar - Diego Marani Diary of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann Journey into Freedom - Klaus Mann The Retrospective - AB Yehoshua Naufrage/Small Boat - Vincent Delecroix Apeirogon - Colum McCann Tokyo Express - Seichō Matsumoto Kaputt - Curzio Malaparte Guest: Ian Bourgeot Producer and Host: Mia Todd Co-host: Francis Neale Editing and Marketing: Hanna Todd
