Kirsi Marjatta Kunnas is a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, children's literature

Children's literature

Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

 author and translator into Finnish

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

. Her extensive oeuvre consists of poems, fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

 books, drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

, translation

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

s (e.g. Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

, Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...

) and non-fiction. Her books have been translated into Swedish

Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...

, English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

, and Estonian

Estonian language

Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...

. She has received several prizes and awards in Finland for her life's work.

Kunnas is married to author Jaakko Syrjä. The lead singer and songwriter Martti Syrjä and guitarist Mikko Syrjä of Eppu Normaali

Eppu Normaali

Eppu Normaali is one of the most popular rock bands in Finland. The band formed in 1976 in Ylöjärvi, a small town near Tampere. The band is the best-selling music artist in Finland, with certified sales surpassing 1.5 million records...

 are their sons.

Poetry

• Villiomenapuu (1947)
• Uivat saaret (1950)
• Tuuli nousee (1953)
• Vaeltanut (1956)
• Valikoima runoja (1958)
• Kuun kuva meissä (1980)
• Kaunis hallayö (1984)
• Valoa kaikki kätketty (1986)
• Puut kantavat valoa, poems 1947–1986 and translated work (1999)

Children's poetry, nursery rhymes

• Tiitiäisen satupuu (1956)
• Puupuu ja käpypoika (1972)
• Hassut aakkoset (1975)
• Hanhiemon iloinen lipas (1978), the Finnish translation of Mother Goose
  Mother Goose
  The familiar figure of Mother Goose is an imaginary author of a collection of fairy tales and nursery rhymes which are often published as Mother Goose Rhymes. As a character, she appears in one "nursery rhyme". A Christmas pantomime called Mother Goose is often performed in the United Kingdom...
  
  
• Kani Koipeliinin kuperkeikat (1979)
• Sirkusjuttuja (1985)
• Tiitiäisen pippurimylly (1991)
• Tiitiäisen tuluskukkaro (2000)
• Tiitiäisen runolelu (2002)
• Tapahtui Tiitiäisen maassa (selection from books Tiitiäisen satupuu, Tiitiäisen tarinoita, Puupuu ja Käpypoika, Sirkusjuttuja, Kani Koipeliinin kuperkeikat, Tiitiäisen pippurimylly, Tiitiäisen tuluskukkaro, Puut kantavat valoa, Tiitiäisen runolelu) (2004)

Fairy tale books, primers

• Tiitiäisen tarinoita (1957)
• Aikamme aapinen / by Kirsi Kunnas and workgroup (1968)
• Aikamme lukukirja: 2–5 / by Kirsi Kunnas and workgroup (1969–1972)

Picture books

• Kuin kissat ja koirat (1967)
• Kutut kotona (1967)
• Pikku lemmikit (1967)
• Terveisiä Afrikasta (1967)
• Hau hau koiranpennut (1968)
• Kis kis kissanpennut (1968)
• Etelän eläimiä – Tiedätkö että. 1–6. Together with Kyllikki Röman (1969)
• Lintuystävämme – Tietoa linnuista. 1–6. Together with Kyllikki Röman (1969)
• Pohjolan eläimiä – Tarua ja totta. 1–6. Together with Kyllikki Röman (1969)

Notable translations into Finnish

• The Tall Book of Mother Goose (Hanhiemon iloinen lipas, 1954)
• Peter Christen Asbjørnsen
  Peter Christen Asbjørnsen
  Peter Christen Asbjørnsen was a Norwegian writer and scholar. He and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe were collectors of Norwegian folklore...
  
  : Skrinet med det rare i (Merkillinen lipas, 1955)
• Tove Jansson
  Tove Jansson
  Tove Marika Jansson was a Swedish-Finnish novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. She is best known as the author of the Moomin books.- Biography :...
  
  : Vem ska trösta knyttet?
  Who Will Comfort Toffle?
  Who Will Comfort Toffle? is the second picture book in the Moomin series by Tove Jansson. It was first published in 1960. It was first translated into English by Kingsley Hart....
  
  (Kuka lohduttaisi Nyytiä? 1960)
• Astrid Lindgren
  Astrid Lindgren
  Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren , 14 November 1907 – 28 January 2002) was a Swedish author and screenwriter who is the world's 25th most translated author and has sold roughly 145 million copies worldwide...
  
  : Skrållan och sjörövarna (Saariston lapset merirosvoina, 1968)
• Lewis Carroll
  Lewis Carroll
  Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
  
  : Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Liisan seikkailut ihmemaassa, 1972, with Eeva-Liisa Manner
  Eeva-Liisa Manner
  Eeva-Liisa Manner , Finnish poet, playwright and translator. She was born in Helsinki but spent her youth in Vyborg . Manner started as a poet in 1944...
  
  )
• Maurice Sendak
  Maurice Sendak
  Maurice Bernard Sendak is an American writer and illustrator of children's literature. He is best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963.-Early life:...
  
  : In the Night Kitchen
  In the Night Kitchen
  In the Night Kitchen is a popular and controversial children's picture book, written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, and first published in 1970. The book depicts a young boy's dream journey through a surreal baker's kitchen where he assists in the creation of a cake to be ready by the morning...
  
  (Mikko maitomies, 1972)
• Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass
  Through the Looking-Glass
  Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
  
  (Liisan seikkailut peilimaailmassa, 1974, with Eeva-Liisa Manner)
• Federico García Lorca: Romancero gitano (Mustalaisromansseja, 1976)

External links

• The Pan And The Potatoes – A poem of Kunnas with an English translation by Herbert Lomas