Writing in 2 Languages (at the Same Time)

One of the many strengths of science fiction is its ability to take a critical eye to present-world problems by speculating about their impact on the distant future. Emmi Itäranta, who joins me on the current episode of New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy, takes full advantage of that strength in her debut novel Memory of Water .

In Memory of Water the future is marked by water scarcity. The origins of the problem are murky to protagonist 17-year-old Noria but not to us: Itäranta leaves readers clues that her fictional Scandinavian Union�s semi-primitive society and authoritarian government have their roots in our contemporary failure to address global warming.

In our conversation, global warming is just the tip of the (melting) iceberg. I found it particularly fascinating that Ms. Itäranta wrote Memory of Water simultaneously in Finnish and English�two languages that, she says, are �at extreme ends of how languages work.�

Here�s more of what she said on the subject:

English and Finnish are extremely different languages. English is a language that has a huge amount of words. The vocabulary is massive, compared to Finnish anyway, but the grammar is relatively simple, whereas Finnish is a language where you have a very small vocabulary but the grammar is very complex and you can do a lot with those few words because of the grammar. So in some ways you could say they are almost at extreme ends of how languages work.

For me, looking at the work in both languages forced me to be extremely careful. It forced me to throw away anything that was unnecessary. It forced me to look at each word and each sentence very closely on an almost microscopic level. So I felt that when I finished the manuscript, even if people didn�t like it, at least I�d be able to tell why I�d made each of the choices that I�d made writing it because I�d had looked at the story through two languages rather than just one. It forced me to be precise and I think that was helpful for the book.

Another remarkable aspect of Memory of Water is the fact that Ms. Itäranta has created in Noria a heroine whose strength comes not through, say, her skill as a fighter (� la Katniss Everdeen) or through magic spells (think Hermione Granger) but through her quiet, careful, and brave determination to search for truth and do what�s right.

Next up on New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy: Shelbi Wescott, author of the Virulent series.