Finnish Literary Decadence at its Zenith

A Translation and Critical Edition of L. Onerva's Mirdja

Kirjoittajat

• Antti Ahmala Helsingin yliopisto https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2559-9705

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33346/joutsen-svanen.181959

Avainsanat:

Decadence, Nietzscheanism, Fin de siècle, L. Onerva, Finnish literature, New Woman fiction

Abstrakti

The text reviews the translation and critical edition of L. Onerva's Decadent novel Mirdja (1908), published in 2025 by the Modern Humanities Association in the book series Jeweled Tortoise. The edition contains an introduction and scholarly footnotes by professor of Finnish literature Viola Parente-Čapkova as well as an Onerva bibliography, a chronology of Onerva's life and works, and two contemporary reviews of Mirdja. Onerva's experimental novel can be considered the high point of Finnish literary Decadence as well as Nietzscheanism. The translation makes Mirdja available to an international audience, and the critical edition also provides detailed analysis, interpretation, and contextualization of the novel.