Kaija Anttonen

I am a translator and live in Karasjoki, Northern Norway. I have worked as a freelance translator for 30 years; I started out in the capital region but have spent the past 25 years first in Lapland and now, more recently, in Northern Norway.

I have translated literature into both Finnish and English from several languages and so my working languages are Finnish, Sámi, English, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish. I have, for example, translated into Finnish Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero, Susan Griffin’s Woman and Nature, and most recently, Sámi poet Rose-Marie Huuva’s Galbma rádna (“cold companion”). In addition to fiction, I have also translated a wide variety of expository texts: everything from UN reports to plain language books, legal texts and movie subtitles. In fact, in addition to literature, movies are also close to my heart and so I have helped organize the indigenous peoples’ film festival Skábmagovat – Reflections of Endless Night in Inari each year of its 15-year existence.

Here at the Saari Residence, my intention is to edit and translate into Finnish an anthology of Sámi poetry because Finnish translations of Sámi poetry are an extremely rare treat.