Tua Forsström is a Finnish writer who writes in 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...

. She was awarded the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 1998 for the poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 collection Efter att ha tillbringat en natt bland hästar.

Forsström's work is known for its engagement with the 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...

 landscape, travel and conflicts within relationships. She often uses quotation

Quotation

A quotation or quote is the repetition of one expression as part of another one, particularly when the quoted expression is well-known or explicitly attributed by citation to its original source, and it is indicated by quotation marks.A quotation can also refer to the repeated use of units of any...

s in her work, sometimes placing them directly into her poems and at other times using them as introductions or interludes in her sequences. She has used quotations from Egon Friedell

Egon Friedell

Egon Friedell born Egon Friedmann, 21 January 1878, in Vienna, died 16 March 1938, in Vienna, was a prominent Austrian philosopher, historian, journalist, actor, cabaret performer and theatre critic.- Early life :...

, Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...

, Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...

 and Friedrich Nietszche. In the collection After Spending a Night Among Horses (Efter att ha tillbringat en natt bland hästar) (1997) Forsström uses quotations from the Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....

 film Stalker, they are placed as interludes in a sequence of pieces and sit alone on the page, without direct reference to their source on the page, leaving this to a Notes & Quotations section at the end of the book.

She published her first book in 1972, A Poem about Love and Other Things (En dikt om kärlek och annat). Her breakthrough into the English-speaking world came in 1987 with her sixth collection, Snow Leopard (Snöleopard), which was translated into the English by David McDuff

David McDuff

David McDuff is a British translator, editor and literary critic.He attended the University of Edinburgh, where he studied Russian and German...

 and published by Bloodaxe Books

Bloodaxe Books

Bloodaxe Books is a British publishing house specialising in poetry.-History:It was founded in 1978 in Newcastle upon Tyne by Neil Astley, who is still editor and managing director. Joined in 1982 by chairman Simon Thirsk, Astley was later awarded an honorary D.Litt by Newcastle University in 1995...

. In 1990 the book won a Poetry Book Society

Poetry Book Society

The Poetry Book Society was founded by T. S. Eliot and friends in 1953. Each quarter the Society selects one recently published collection of poetry for its members. The Society also publishes the quarterly poetry journal Bulletin, and it administers the competition for the annual T. S. Eliot Prize...

 Translation Award in the United Kingdom. In 2006, I Studied Once at a Wonderful Faculty was published by Bloodaxe Books

Bloodaxe Books

Bloodaxe Books is a British publishing house specialising in poetry.-History:It was founded in 1978 in Newcastle upon Tyne by Neil Astley, who is still editor and managing director. Joined in 1982 by chairman Simon Thirsk, Astley was later awarded an honorary D.Litt by Newcastle University in 1995...

, with translations from David McDuff

David McDuff

David McDuff is a British translator, editor and literary critic.He attended the University of Edinburgh, where he studied Russian and German...

 and Stina Katchadourian. The collection contains Snow Leopard (Snöleopard) (1987), The Parks (Parkerna) (1992), After Spending a Night Among Horses (Efter att ha tillbringat en natt bland hästar) (1997) and a new poem sequence called Minerals.