Article
Nordic poetry at the Paris Book Fair
March 18, 2011
The 31st Paris Book Fair (Salon du Livre de Paris 2011) starts today and will run until Monday 21 March at the Porte de Versailles. This year, poets from Nordic countries are the guests of honour, including Inga Ravna Eira, from Karasjok, the administrative centre of the Finnmark county (where Northern Sámi is spoken).
Ravna Eira states: “Sámi literature is extremely young; it is only 40 years old. This is due to the fact that Sámis did not have a natural relation with written literature until recently.”
Before this time, Sámis had an oral narrative culture. Minimalist and traditional chants derived from shamanism called joik have significantly shaped their literature. The joik was prohibited by missionaries in the 19th century but is now an essential source of inspiration for both Sámi writers and poets.
Another writer, Harald Gaski, notes, “All of our poetry comes from joik. If there are more poetry books than novels in Sámi, it is because Sámi language is poetic.” The main difficulty that Sámi writers are facing is in transcending their own regional literary references. “We are missing the translation of the universal literary classsics into Sami. This would really nourish our imagery,” says Rauni Magga Lukkari, Sámi poet and translator.
Read the original article (in French).
Ravna Eira states: “Sámi literature is extremely young; it is only 40 years old. This is due to the fact that Sámis did not have a natural relation with written literature until recently.”
Before this time, Sámis had an oral narrative culture. Minimalist and traditional chants derived from shamanism called joik have significantly shaped their literature. The joik was prohibited by missionaries in the 19th century but is now an essential source of inspiration for both Sámi writers and poets.
Another writer, Harald Gaski, notes, “All of our poetry comes from joik. If there are more poetry books than novels in Sámi, it is because Sámi language is poetic.” The main difficulty that Sámi writers are facing is in transcending their own regional literary references. “We are missing the translation of the universal literary classsics into Sami. This would really nourish our imagery,” says Rauni Magga Lukkari, Sámi poet and translator.
Read the original article (in French).
Source: www.lemonde.fr
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