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In the 1980s Finnish satire at last came to the attention of international audiences. Slapstick and broad, often dismissed as juvenile, such humor had seldom attracted the translator's eye. With the films of Aki Kaurismaki and the novels of Arto Paasilinna (b. 1942), however, Finnish satire met the world and found, surprisingly, a marvelously receptive audience. Paasilinna's 1975 novel Janiksen vuosi (The Year of the Rabbit) became a sensation both in Sweden and in France when translated over a decade after its Finnish debut. Now, with the economic strife of the 1990s, Paasilinna's newest novel Aatami ja Eeva (Adam and Eve) offers Finns a biting critique of contemporary life as well as an imaginative and intelligent parody...