On May 22, 2025, La Chambre aux échos presented a literary and musical evening at the Finnish Institute in Paris, dedicated to Finnish poet Eeva-Liisa Manner, on the occasion of the publication of her two latest collections in French.
Eeva-Liisa Manner (1921 – 1995) left her mark on Finnish and global poetry thanks to her unique voice. Her last two collections, Flee Sailboats with Light Sails and Dead Waters, written amid the political violence of the 1970s, explore the power of poetry by examining “personal and collective mythologies.” These two journeys through personal and historical memory have now been translated into a foreign language for the first time (published by L’extrême contemporain, 2024).
On the occasion of this publication, the Finnish Institute is hosting a discussion with translator Aleksi Barrière, publisher Alphonse Clarou, and researcher Harri Veivo to present Manner and her world. Actress Julie Hega, violinist Irma Niskanen, and cellist Juuli Holma offer a sensory journey through text and music, headed to the place where the poet wishes to take us: “behind the looking glass.”
Full Credits
Concept and Hosting
Aleksi Barrière
Readings in French
Julie Hega
Violin
Irma Niskanen
Cello
Juuli Holma
Speakers
Alphonse Clarou & Harri Veivo
Musical works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Sofia Gubaidulina, Diego Ortiz, Kaija Saariaho and Jörg Widmann.
About Eeva-Liisa Manner
Eeva-Liisa Manner (1921 – 1995) was a major 20th century poet, novelist, playwright, and translator. Recognized since her collection Tämä matka (This Journey, 1956) as a leading figure in the Finnish modernist movement, she developed a personal style infused with music, devoted to the exploration of the meanders of intimate and collective memory through images. Behind the surface of contemplative poetry replete with sensations of landscapes and seasons, Manner confronts her era and its repressed aspects, those of myths and history. The themes of childhood, madness, and death are introspective, but also a space for resistance through words to conformism, dictatorships, and warmongering impulses. Herself a refugee from Karelia and scarred by war, Manner writes against the “victors,” lending her voice to the marginalized, the alienated, and everything that exists only on the edge of silence. Her ongoing dialogue with authors from other horizons and her major achievements as a translator embody her lifelong commitment to solidarity through poetry. Her last two collections, translated into French under the titles Voiliers fuyez à voiles légères and Les eaux mortes, bring the different components of her work to their culmination — literary journeys recapitulating the themes she had revisited obsessively, thus forming her testament as a writer.
Aleksi Barrière’s presentation (in French):
