Translator Bui Viet Hoa has produced Vietnamese versions of the national epic, the Kalevala, as well as works by contemporary writers such as Rosa Liksom, Elvi Sinervo and Arto Melleri.
Hoa says that free-form Finnish poetry works well in Vietnamese, but that the major differences in the structures of the two languages cause her "a lot of headaches".
When it comes to fiction, Hoa believes that depictions of traditional Finnish rural life, such as those by Väinö Linna, tend to interest Vietnamese readers more than contemporary urban tales.
This year about 350 Finnish books are being translated into foreign languages. A few dozen of these are non-European tongues.
Within the next few weeks, for instance, Leena Lander's 1991 novel The Home of the Dark Butterflies will be published in Arabic in Beirut, while nineteenth-century plays by Minna Canth will appear in Chinese. Iris Schwanck, director of the Finnish Literature Society's Literature Exchange ( FILI), says that much of the credit for helping to make Finnish literature part of the world literature must go to "our wonderful, talented translators". YLE