The Last Days of Maiju Lassila

<p>Who wrote this novel?</p><p>      J I Vatanen was not a real person; he was a heteronym-a characterized pseudonym-of a strange Finnish author named Algot Untola who was arrested as a Red agitator at the end of the Finnish Civil War in May 1918 and summarily sentenced and shot.</p><p>      This novel is J I Vatanen's memoir of the events leading up to that violent death and its tragicomic aftermath.</p><p>      But who wrote it?</p><p>      Douglas Robinson a noted Finnish-English translator and translation scholar claims that he pseudotranslated it-but what does that mean? A pseudotranslation is a hoax translation one with no original. But if the hoaxer declares the hoax up front is it still a hoax?</p><p>       </p><p><em>The Last Days of Maiju Lassila</em> is a readable story with its backdrop in a volatile political history from the 1880s to 1919; but it is also an experimental memoir/novel/translation that toys with our certainty about reality.</p><p><br></p>