Helena Anhava

Ruth Helena Anhava (24 October 1925 – 24 November 2018) was a prolific Finnish poet, author and translator. Her translations include novels, plays, lyrics and dozens of auditions.

Biography She was born Ruth Helena Pohjanpää on 24 October 1925, in Helsinki. Her father, Lauri Pohjanpää, was a poet, theologian and teacher.

Her husband was Tuomas Anhava (1927-2001), a poet, translator, essayist and publisher. The couple had four children; the best known was their son, Martti Anhava (b.1955), a Finnish writer, translator and journalist.

Helena Anhava graduated from high school in 1944 and graduated in librarianship in 1952. From 1947 to 1952, she worked at Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö, a Finnish publisher of general literature. From 1952 on, she was a Finnish translator. has categorized Anhava as a "poet of outstanding stature and permanent worth." He writes that her poetry "speaks for the family, the sensitive human being, and the private life from a mother's perspective."

Death She died in Helsinki, 24 November 2018, at the age of 93.

We need to speak quietly when we hear sadly. Poems. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1971. . Turn words. Poems. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1973. . Ask yourself silence. Poems. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1974. . Flank. Thinking. Aphorisms. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1976. . Slow part. Poems. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1979. . I still say. Poetry, talk. Poems, aphorisms. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1982. . When is the youngest. Short stories. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1985. . New old acquaintance. Children's book. Illustration: Heljä Lassila. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1985. . Light. Poems. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1988. . Poems 1971-1990 . Collected poems. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1990. . There is nothing for life. Reports. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1995. . Mention before the wave. Poems. Helsinki: Ottawa, 1997. . Nobody's Country: The Mind, Found 1971-1999. Knit aphorism. Helsinki: Ottawa, 2000. . The time of desolation. Poems. Helsinki: Ottawa, 2003. . Deliver your house. Memory traces . Memoirs. Helsinki: Ottawa, 2006. . Nobody knows. Poems. Helsinki: Ottawa, 2008. . I only sleep there: poems 1991–2010. Collected poems. Helsinki: Ottawa, 2010.

Selected awards Grand Finnish Book Club Recognition Award, 1979 State Literature Prize, 1980 Recognition Award of the Finnish Writers' Union, 1994 Alfred Kordelin Foundation Award, 1997 Recognition Award of the Great Finnish Book Club, 2001 Samuli Paronen Award, 2006