Much of the literature of Finland is written not in Finnish but in Swedish, for Finland was a province of Sweden until the 19th century, and Swedish was its official language. Even after Finland passed into Russian hands in 1808, Finland-Swedes continued to dominate the country’s economic and public life, and while their poetry became a potent force for the assertion of Finland’s national identity, Swedish gradually gave way to Finnish as the dominant language of the national literature. Against this background it is easy to see how isolation became a central theme in Finland-Swedish poetry. Finnish writers are said to be obsessed by loneliness and melancholy, and to fill their books with descriptions of night and winter, frozen lakes and pine forests. Yet while Finland-Swedish poets pack quite enough snow and ice into their lines, their work is full of vitality, surprisingly different and sharply aware of the rest of European literature.