Jarkko Tontti
Author

Poems

Synopsis finnish

Translations: de en es fr it pl ro ru

[Saisi oman talon] finnish

Translations: en es et fr hr it ro ru

[Sillä jokainen tarvitsee avaran tilan] finnish

Translations: de en el es et ro sl

Miesten välisestä ystävyydestä finnish

Translations: de en es et fr pl ru

[Kun Jacasser kuolee] finnish

Translations: de es fr pl

Jarkko Tontti
Author

About

* 09.12.1971, Tampere, Finland
lives in: Helsinki, Finland

Jarkko Tontti is a poet, novelist, essayist and lawyer. He lives in Helsinki, Finland. He is member of PEN International Executive Board and former president of Finnish PEN. He studied law, philosophy and literature at the universities of Helsinki, Edinburgh, Berlin and Brussels. Before his literary career he worked as a lawyer in the Ministry of Justice and in the Parliament of Finland and as a lecturer at the University of Helsinki. Tontti has published collections of poems, novels and essays. His first poetry collection Vuosikirja (Book of Years, 2006) won the Kalevi Jäntti literature prize. Tontti is also known as a human rights activist and columnist. His poems have been translated into English, French, Swedish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Estonian, German, Greek, Slovenian, Latin, Polish, Romanian, Croatian and Portuguese.

Two distinctive lines can be seen in Tontti's poetry. One is historical and universal, the other personal and intimate. Tontti's writing thus delves into the annals of history, though not through a use of historical language but through his protagonist called Jacasser, a chattering (jacasser, Fr.) oaf (jackass, Eng.). Jacasser is an archetype, a kindred spirit of Henri Michaux’s M. Plume, a man who wanders through history at times as the Greek teacher of Emperor Domitian, at other times as a merciless bishop in 17th-century Tartu, his relation to power remaining throughout one of both faithful servant and silent critic. Tontti tells the story of his trickster protagonist in the third person. With Jacasser’s help, he compares different eras and, in an almost tragicomic light, makes his readers assess the significance of an individual life against the historical backdrop: our relationship to our fathers, to friends, love, to dreams and the seasons.