Kaapista kaanoniin ja takaisin:Johanna Sinisalon, Pirkko Saision ja Helena Sinervon teosten queer-poliittisia luentoja

The present study examines three novels by Finnish women — Johanna Sinisalo, Pirkko Saisio and Helena Sinervo — each of whom has received the Finlandia Prize for fiction. The novels Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi (2000), Punainen erokirja (2003) and Runoilijan talossa (2004) are analysed in the context of contemporary cultural change in which queer themes have become not only a visible part of cultural representations of gender and sexuality but also active constituents of the established cultural canon. The study considers the varieties of gendered and sexual meaning which are generated by this fiction and — as the novels in question deal with non-normative sexuality — it also discusses how these issues were manifested in their reception. Additionally, it investigates the problematics of a literary genre which thematises non-normative sexuality. Beyond its engagement with the interrelationship between the selected novels (along with their social context) and the present culture, institutions and canon, the study also concerns itself with the question of how non-normative sexuality is addressed and discussed in literature and its reception. The novels are examined as products of a context in which their publication had seemed like a swift, yet appropriate, response to a cultural need for the creation of new, ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ queer representations. In addition, they are approached as works with specific queer-political agendas, aimed at opposing and deranging the hetero establishment. The analysis of the novels is consequently grounded in the politics of performativity, queer theory and the problematics of its domestic contextualisation, taking account, too, of the intersection between performativity and queer reading. This methodology is called queer political reading. The novels under investigation participate in the cultural, societal, social and discursive processes that use gender and sexuality to construct meaning. The fact that they have also received the Finlandia Prize connects them to a ...