Minna Canth (1844-1897) is among Finland’s most acclaimed writers and dramatists. Her body of work includes ten plays, seven novellas, numerous short stories, articles and speeches. She is particularly lauded for her playwriting, having been among the first to write plays in the Finnish language. Her dramas were pioneering both formally and politically, as she espoused feminist-realist dramaturgy and feminist-socialist politics unique within her context.

Canth has received little international attention and is almost entirely unknown in the Anglophone world. This is in part due to the inaccessibility of her works, very few of which have been translated into English. This book comprises new translations of the four radical Finnish-language plays at the heart of Canth’s career: The Worker’s Wife (1885), Children of Misfortune (1888), The Pastor’s Family (1891) and Anna Liisa (1895). Between them, these plays address the misogynistic law that gave husbands ownership of their wives’ property and earnings; poverty, unemployment and workers’ revolution; intergenerational conflict and social change; infanticide and women’s lack of bodily autonomy. The translations are accompanied by extensive commentary, providing insight into both Minna Canth’s work and life, as well as the translation process.