FINLAND

As most of you know I have a special interest in Finland. Ever since 1990, when I visited

Finland for the second time, a visit which happened to coincide with the Bush-Gorbachev

summit, when Suomi was also leaving behind the oppressive “Soviet time” and “breaking away”

in a cultural and spiritual sense, and generating lots of interesting stories in the process, e.g., the

films of Aki Kaurismaki, the subject of my first dispatch from Helsinki for “The International

Herald Tribune,” I have been filing dispatches and essays about those stories for a wide variety

of US and UK publications.

At the same time, because Finland was—and still is, in a sense “off the map” for the US press, I

have been able to bring all or most of my special serious, as well as a few not so serious ones to

bear in my Finnish sub-career as it were: film, design, education, politics, islands, models.

You’ll find Finnish-specific articles and essays about articles about all of the above subjects

herewith. Islands? Got ‘em. How about the Aland Islands—which also happens to be just about

my favorite place in the world? Check out the two pieces Models? Got ‘em. Check out the

squib I wrote about Paparazzi, Helsinki’s top modelling agency, for the Sunday Times back in

’98. It’s all there—a veritable journalistic smorgasbord.

Archive of Articles on Finland:

Finland Reportage

Perhaps inevitably, starting in 2008 I also began writing books about Finland. I have written

three books about Finland: The Battle of Finland, my opus about the 1939-40 Winter War, aka

Finland’s finest hour; Off the Map: A Personal History of Finland, my illustrated memoir of my

special relationship with Finland and the Baltic region; and most recently, Citizen Kekkonen: The

Grand Design, my historical biography of Urho Kekkonen, Finland’s long-time president and

still the most controversial figure in Finnish history. I also am now at work at my fourth book

about Finland, In The Shadow of the Peace, the sequel to Battle, about the so-called “Interim

Peace,” the murky and momentous interval between the Winter War and the so-called

Continuation War, when Finland somehow wound up fighting on the “wrong side.” Stay tuned!

Samples of all four books can also be found here:

Books on Finland:

In The Shadow of the Peace

Off The Map: A Personal History of Finland

Citizen Kekkonen

The Hundred Day Winter War

Last but not least, as you can see, there also is a gallery of photos of “my” Finland from over the years, extending back to my very first visit in 1977, through the present day, including several of me on the Suomi beat. Enjoy!

Photo Gallery:

My Finland