Jyrki Korpua: Mythomorphic Beginnings – Eddic Creation Myths and Eucatastrophic Endings in Digital Role-Playing Games Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and God of War Ragnarök

In my presentation, I examine mythomorphosis – metamorphosis of cultural myths – in con-temporary intermedial culture, in this study case, in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (Ubisoft, France 2020) and God of War Ragnarök (Santa Monica Studios, USA 2022), both being popular digital role-playing games that use and circulate mythic elements for contemporary audiences. My focus is on Northern myths based on Scandinavian mythology, and especially Eddic myths deriving from Old Norse Poetic Edda (ca. 11 ^th and 12 ^th century). This presentation focuses mainly on creation myths, god figures, and eucatastophic (meaning “a good catastrophe”) endings on the games.

The key term mythomorphosis is related to that of mythopoeia, the word used by J. R.R. Tolkien to refer to creative myth making (see Korpua: The Mythopoeic Code of Tolkien 2021), but also to metamorphosis. Myth is here meant to be read in the large sense used in cultural studies, to refer to archetypal fictional narratives that structure cultural imagination and have special importance to certain groups of people (see, for example, Jung: Jung on Mythology (ed. R. A. Segal) 1998, Frye: Anatomy of Criticism 1957, Barthes: Mythologies 1957, Lévi-Strauss: Mythologiques 1964).

My presentation showcases how Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and God of War Ragnarök reuse the creation myth of Eddic Völuspá and utilize Nordic god figures Odin, Thor, Tyr and Freya, in an interesting creative way. As a result, the games emphasize Eucatastrophic endings, for example Eddic “Ragnarök”, which are central in Nordic mythology and fantasy fiction, to create new beginnings and new mythic futures.

Bio:

Doctor Jyrki Korpua is a University Lecturer and a Docent of Speculative Fiction at the University of Oulu, Finland. Now, Korpua is working as a researcher at “Mythomorphosis: Northern Myths in Contemporary Multimedial Culture” -project, funded by Kone Foundation (2026–29). Korpua is the chairperson of the editorial board of Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Fantasy and Science Fiction Research.

His recent publications include Nordic Speculative Fiction (edited by Korpua, Koistinen, Roine & Tveit 2024), Tolkien and the Kalevala (2024, in Finnish 2022), Mythopoeic Code of Tolkien (2021), Fantasia: Lajit, ilmiöt ja yhteiskunta (edited by Korpua, Hirsjärvi, Kovala & Välisalo 2021), New Perspectives on Dystopian Literature in Literature and Other Media (edited by Isomaa, Korpua & Teittinen 2020). As an academic writer, he is the winner of Jamie Bishop Memorial Award 2025, awarded by The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, and co-winner of British Science Fiction Award 2021 and British Fantasy Award 2019.

Lynn Levanon: Myth, History, and Progress in Bronze by Amir Harash

Bronze by Israeli author Amir Harash is a 2019 novel that follows various characters, and spans an unknown length of time, with a made-up myth being the connecting thread. It starts with a faceless, nameless priest in training for the god Tammuz running away from his role. As in his world, every land has a god, to avoid being caught he decides to invent a new one, which he names Fig-Tree. From there his story spreads, the Fig-Tree gains many followers, and becomes a threat to the world order. A war breaks out and destroys the continent. Survivors of the war build ships and eventually find another continent, Amerigo, different from their own in almost every way. The story then follows some of these refugees in their new lives, and the way the people of this new continent react to them. Through the various beginnings, the novel creates a sense of progress- from ancient to modern language, tribal and religious society to a much more progressive one, and from belief in magic to reliance on science and technology. However, the novel also continuously questions this progress, ultimately ending with the rebirth of Tammuz worship, coming a full circle. In addition, multiple versions of the creation myth of this world are told throughout the novel, each showing the storyworld in a new light, and bringing into question the motive of those who tell them.

Bio:

Lynn Levanon graduated Magna Cum Laude with a master’s degree in culture research from Tel Aviv University and is currently a PhD student in the University of Oulu, researching Israeli science fiction and fantasy literature. A part of her MA thesis was recently published as part of the collection ”Israeli Speculative Fiction: Beyond Is/real”.  https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781805966821

Elio Parkkola: Taking Fictional Mythology Seriously – Elden Ring Lore YouTubers as Folklorists of the Folkloresque

The action role-playing game Elden Ring, directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, has enjoyed immense popularity since its release in 2022. The game is known both for its difficulty and its breathtakingly vast fantasy world, developed in collaboration with George R. R. Martin. Through their Tarnished character, players interact with a fictional reality that has its own multidimensional history, folklore, and mythology, conveyed primarily through environmental storytelling, item descriptions, and so on. Although unraveling this often-obscure lore requires quite a bit of effort on the player’s part, they don’t have to tackle this overwhelming task alone. Even more extensive than the game world itself is the community-generated content it has spawned over the past few years, including a vast array of YouTube videos. In this talk, I will look at how these videos discuss fictional mythology, using examples from selected videos by SilentEllipsis and VaatiVidya.

As noted by SilentEllipsis, “Elden Ring has a habit of drawing ideas from multiple different traditions and synthesizing them into its own mythology.” Similarly, the videos exploring this mythology seamlessly blend elements of the game’s internal reality with references to various myths, traditions, philosophical ideas, and works of popular culture from all corners of our own world. In my presentation, I will examine the ontological status these videos confer upon their object of analysis through the discursive practices they employ. In addition, I will reflect on how they position themselves in relation to the fictional world they discuss. Drawing on the concept of “folkloresque” – which is used to describe the way popular culture performs the idea of folklore – I propose that Elden Ring lore YouTubers can be viewed as a kind of folklorists, operating on the threshold between two realities in a process of participatory world-building.

Bio:

Elio Parkkola is a doctoral researcher at the university of Turku. His dissertation explores young adult fantasy literature that draws inspiration from Finnish and Karelian folklore. He focuses on questions regarding the interaction between the human and the non-human, as well as the resonance of old traditions with our time. Every now and then, he strays a bit off track, for example by getting a little too immersed in video games. He is a board member and treasurer of The Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research (Finfar), as well as the lead organizer of the Finncon 2026 Academic Track.

Marjut Puhakka: Where Consciousness Begins – Zombies and Posthuman Subjectivity

Zombies are often understood as figures defined by the loss or absence of consciousness. However, many contemporary works complicate this view by staging moments in which consciousness appears, transforms, or is redistributed beyond the human. This paper examines how zombie fiction reconfigures the beginning of consciousness and, with it, the emergence of subjectivity.

Drawing on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend (1954), M. R. Carey’s The Girl with All the Gifts (2014), and the television series The Last of Us (2023), I argue that these narratives relocate the beginning of consciousness away from the human subject. In I Am Legend, the monstrous Other develops forms of sociality that challenge the human as the normative subject. In The Girl with All the Gifts, hybrid beings blur the boundary between human and nonhuman consciousness. In The Last of Us, fungal infection introduces a model of distributed, nonhuman agency that unsettles anthropocentric assumptions about cognition.

By analysing these works as narrative thought experiments, the paper proposes that zombie fiction does not merely represent the end of humanity but also stages the beginning of new forms of subjectivity. These narratives invite us to reconsider when consciousness begins, what counts as a subject, and how ethical recognition emerges in relation to nonhuman or hybrid beings. In doing so, zombie fiction participates in broader posthumanist debates about the limits of the human and the conditions under which new forms of life and agency can emerge.

Bio:

Marjut Puhakka is a Finnish literary scholar and teacher whose doctoral research focuses on zombies, consciousness, and posthuman subjectivity in speculative fiction. She studies how narratives imagine the emergence of new forms of subjectivity, particularly through figures such as self-aware zombies. Her work combines literary studies with philosophy of mind and horror studies, examining how speculative fiction challenges the boundaries of the human.

Minna Siikilä-Laitila: ”It wasn’t his place to do so.” – The Reception of The Willows and Beyond by William Horwood

’Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,’ said the Rat. ’And that’s something that doesn’t matter, either to you to me. I’ve never been there, and I’m never going, nor do you either, if you have any sense at all. Don’t ever refer to it again, please.—’ (Grahame, 1908/2008, 10.)

Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) has been said to be the last great master of anglophone prose (Barrett, 1949, 6). His best known work is The Wind in The Willows (1908) that has sparked many adaptations and sequels since it’s publishing, like many cartoons and even two live-action movies. Maybe the most renowed adaptation has been Cosgrove Hall’s stop motion animated television series (1984-1989) and a film (1983) preceding it.

However, there has also been many literary attempts to envision, what happened to the beloved characters after mr. Toad got his Toad Hall back, as Grahame himself never wrote any sequels. Most well-known literary sequels to The Wind in The Willows are William Horwood’s (1944) Tales of the Willows -books: The Willows in Winter (1993), Toad Triumphant (1995), The Willows and Beyond (1996) and The Willows at Christmas (1999). From these books The Willows in Winter has also been adapted to an animated movie (1996).

In this paper I aim to discuss the reception of Horwood’s novel The Willows and Beyond. In this story Horwood goes for the same writing style as Grahame had and presents a new generation of animals, that are related to the original characters: Mole, Ratty, Mr. Toad and Badger. Unlike, for example, the beloved Cossgrove Hall, Horwood decides to destroy the entire River Bank and all its central inhabitants. In the novel the River Bank is clear cut, and its residents are forced to move. Soon after, everyone dies. First Badger is lost, and then everyone else follows in a kind of dreamlike mass destruction. Horwood’s novel turned the idyllic fairytale into a tragedy, making the book one of the most controversial sequels of all time. Many readers have reported crying while reading this book, and it’s no wonder. Some were also left feeling angry. For example in Goodreads ”Melanie” wrote:

How dare he presume to kill off the Riverbankers! Never have I been so hurt and upset by the death of childhood characters. It wasn’t his place to do so. The characters should’ve been allowed to live on for future generations to enjoy, without the cloud of this book hanging over them. (Goodreads, 2026.)

In my presentation I am going to discuss reader’s reactions to this novel. I want to ask: how much can an unofficial sequel stray from the original text? Are there some unwritten rules or norms to follow (at least in audience’s minds)? Does the writer of an adaptation have the right to go this far?

Sources:

Barrett, D. (1949). Lukijalle. In K. Grahame Kaislikossa suhisee. (p. 5-6). Helsinki: Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö.

Grahame, K. (1908/2008). The Wind in the Willows. London: Puffin Books.

Horwood, W. (1996). The Willows and Beyond. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Griffin.

Tales of the Willows #3; The Willows and Beyond; William Horwood, Patrick Benson, Kenneth Grahame. Goodreads. (2026). [online]. Retrieved from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/161889.The_Willows_and_Beyond

Bio:

Minna Siikilä-Laitila (PhD) defended her doctoral thesis ”There is not a single original thought in Eragon” Tekijyys, intertekstuaalisuus ja fandom Internetin fantasiakirjakeskusteluissa in 2022 (University of Jyväskylä). Siikilä-Laitila is interested in fandom, reception studies, online conversations and speculative fiction. She also has a master’s degree in communication studies (University of Vaasa). Siikilä-Laitila works as a librarian in Pori.

Radvilė Musteikytė: ”A New Era Dawns” – Siiri Enoranta’s Fantasy Novel Nocturnal Lifelines as an Allegory for the Anthropocene

In this paper I analyze Finnish writer Siiri Enoranta’s prize-winning fantasy novel Nocturnal Lifelines (Keuhkopuiden uni, 2024). It explores human relationships to nature by following Katica, a wild-hearted socialite whose defiant act begins a new era for Homo Arboris, winged human- and plant-like beings living in uneasy symbiosis with their “lung trees”. I attend to the novel’s decadent fantasy world to identify how it invites both fantastic immersion and allegorical meaning-making, considering how these different modes of readerly engagement work together in activating the environmental charge of the narrative. I draw on Kaisa Kortekallio’s analytical concept of “embodied estrangement” (2024) against the backdrop of the rhetorical approach to literature to discuss the motifs of wings, flying, and blending with lung trees. Arguing that the novel stages the dialectic between different understandings of “Nature,” I read Nocturnal Lifelines as an allegory for the Anthropocene that points to the concept’s paradoxicality and problematizes a stark separation between Nature and Culture. With this paper, I aim to contribute to broader discussions about the variety of Anthropocene fiction that engages with aspects of the very real environmental crisis through non-realist literary modes.

Bio:

Radvilė Musteikytė is a doctoral researcher at Vilnius University and the University of Turku. Her research interests include contemporary Finnish speculative fiction, Anthropocene fiction, ecocritical and posthumanist literary studies, and the rhetorical theory of narrative. In her doctoral dissertation “Environmental Rhetoric of Contemporary Finnish Speculative Fiction,” Radvilė examines literary resources that Finnish authors employ in their speculative narratives to invite readers to investigate their relationship to the natural world. She also serves as the head organizer of Lituanicon – Lithuania’s annual convention for all fans of the fantastic.

Xia Zijian: The Beginning of Beginning – A Constructivist Approach to the ’Late Qing Origins’ of Chinese Science Fiction

Chinese science fiction is now generally recognized as having originated in the late Qing period (1840–1911), when Western science fiction entered China through missionary translations and Chinese intellectuals began experimenting in the genre. This period of intense cultural negotiation under colonial pressure made the genre’s origins inseparable from broader debates about national identity and modernity. Yet these origins have never been a stable historical fact: they have been repeatedly reconstructed across different periods of Chinese literary history, shaped by shifting academic and political forces.

Drawing on field theory, it could be traced how perceptions of this ’beginning’ have exhibited markedly different methodological and discursive orientations. In the 1950s, the Late Qing origins of science fiction were subsumed into a monolithic framework of popular science serving a national salvation and modernization agenda. In the 1980s, the same material was reinvoked to support arguments for literary pluralism within a reforming cultural mainstream. In each case, external discourses sought to co-opt science fiction into their own frameworks, generating tensions with the genre’s internal aspirations for autonomy, including conflicts between competing mainstream discourses and the field’s own boundary-drawing practices.

The genre ambiguity inherent in late Qing science fiction has made it a peculiarly productive site for such contested historicization. This reveals a structural paradox in Chinese modern literary history and practice: a genre oriented toward the future must continually construct an authorized past to legitimize its place within the mainstream literary canon. Examining these successive acts of origin-making, this paper proposes that the ’beginning’ of Chinese science fiction is not a historical given but an ongoing discursive production—one that tells us as much about the present of its constructors as about the past it claims to recover.

Bio:

Xia Zijian (夏子健) is a postgraduate student at the Department of Sinology, Universität Würzburg. He received his Bachelor of Arts with honors from the School of Literature at Zhejiang University. His research interests include Late Qing science fiction, Global Sinophone science fiction, and chinese science fiction industry. He made two presentations at the annual meetings of SFRA in 2024 and 2025. He is also a research member of the China Science Fiction Research Center（中国科幻研究中心）.

Gao Weiming: Imagining the Beginning of Modern China – Alternative History of Chinese Modernity in Chinese Web Fiction

As an official concept of historical narrative, the definition of “modern China” is unquestionable within China’s mainstream discourse. However, driven by various ideological positions, the question “When did modern China begin?” has become a popular topic of debate on the Chinese internet. These divergent historical perspectives each generate their own narrative discourse, which can be understood as distinct forms of counterfactual historiography. On this basis, certain fantasy web novels have become media through which different historical perspectives are expressed. This easily disseminated literary form has become a primary channel for imagining counterfactual histories under China’s regime of speech censorship. This paper focuses on Chinese fantasy web novels and examines how they imagine different beginnings of the same modern China through depictions of the Ming dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and the Republic of China. It also explores how these works metaphorically articulate heterogeneous ideological positions under the constraints of China’s internet censorship system. Illumine Lingao (临高启明) is one of the earliest web novels to attempt a retelling of late Ming history, engaging in dialogue with digital nationalism—especially Han nationalism—that advocates a “1644 as beginning” historical perspective. Usurping the Qing Dynasty (篡清) is the most successful time‑travel novel to re-narrate late Qing history, largely aligning with the “1840 as beginning” historical perspective found in official narratives, and thus gaining mainstream recognition. Red Dawn (赤色黎明) reimagines the revolutionary past by envisioning the founding of an alternative communist China, metaphorically affirming the “1949 as beginning” historical perspective that underpins the official narrative. All of these works imagine historical “what if” based on different modern beginnings, thereby touching the boundaries of China’s mainstream ideology, in which major historical conclusions are to be resolved rather than debated. Building on this, the paper also discusses how the state’s overuse of the term “historical nihilism” and its attempts to reconstruct a “correct historical memory” regarding the question of beginnings may further shape the future of historical fantasy writing in China.

Bio:

Gao Weiming is a PhD candidate in Sinology at the University of Freiburg, he holds a Master’s degree in Science Fiction Studies at University of Liverpool, currently a research member in ERC-Funded Project SINOFANTASY. His primary research interests broadly encompass contemporary Chinese science fiction and fantasy, particularly these genres within internet popular culture. His current research focuses on the contemporary Chinese science fiction fandom and science fiction trends, using this as a basis to explore China’s ideology and economy transformation since 1990s. In the past few years, he has published numerous reviews, critiques and other essays on science fiction and fantasy in Chinese.

Tapani N. Joelsson: Roots of Science Fiction Fandom in Finland

In previous literature Finnish fandom has been identified in 1950’s, but for reasons it did not begin as more coordinated movement. Then the story continues to the events that are seen as the birth of fandom: However, it is generally agreed that the foundation of the Turku Science Fiction Society in 1976 and the birth of its zine Spin in 1977 were instrumental in forming the Finnish fandom as we know it today. Then, next big steps were the formation of other clubs and first cons such as King-Con (1982), AikaCon (1984), Tamcon (1985), and then Finncon (1986).

Many of these accounts of the history of fandom contain also a note about event between the 1950’s and the birth of TSFS. Example of these is the sentence preceding the previous quote in: The first Finnish science fiction convention was organised by the Student Union at the University of Turku in 1969. Usually, as also in this case it is not discussed further, in some cases it is brushed on the side as it was ’too long’ as it lasted for a week.

In this presentation I will tell and document the story of said Science Fiction week 1969. The event will be placed on historical context, as year 1969 was the heydays of space race with Apollo flights. Also, the discussion about science fiction and its status in Finland was heated at the time.

Sf-week was part of the science popularisation event organised on 22.3 — 23.3.1969, which contained presentations and panel discussions. On the other side, the Sf-week hosted presentations, sf-comics and book exhibitions, and series of sf-movies arranged by student movie club Kinokopla. Main activities were held on 23.3. and 24.3., and the movies were running from 24.3. until 28.3. Main sources for information are articles in local newspapers and interviews and material received from the main organiser.

Bio:

Tapani N. Joelsson, Msc, is a University Teacher and researcher of random sparkly things at the University of Turku. His research interests include such things as subcultures of hobbyists and fandoms with their histories and cultures. These subcultures include LANs, demoparties, role-playing, live-roleplaying (LARPs), and science fiction fandoms.

Tiina Männistö-Funk: You Are at the Beginning of Your Journey – How Speculative Fiction Could Help Us Imagine Better Mobility Futures

Mobility between and inside different locations plays an important role in speculative fiction, from written stories, films and series to video games and role-playing. Many stories start with the beginning of a journey, and extensive mobility is a way of exploring fantasy universes, as well as the foundation of entire space empires. However, the kinds of mobilities that are imagined for these fantastic worlds often tend to quite simply reflect the dominant transport systems of our own time.

As our cities and lives have increasingly centred around the passenger car, also the imagined futures have been filled with flying cars or post-apocalyptic motor vehicles. Unfortunately, the present-day system of automobility has been identified as the cause and amplifier of many pressing problems ranging from pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and loss of biodiversity to serious spatial, socio-economic and health-related inequalities on both local and global level. One of the challenges in changing this harmful system of mobility is our difficulty of imagining other possibilities.

In this talk, I will present cases from my own research in order to inspire new ways of thinking around mobility. First, I will take a look at the relationship between imagined and real life mobilities through the case of talking cars in fiction and in reality. I will then consider the possibilities and difficulties of imagining different mobility futures through the example of bicycles in science fiction stories. At the end, I will invite the audience to collectively imagine more surprising speculative mobilities in a guided exercise.

Bio:

Tiina Männistö-Funk, PhD, has the title of docent for the history of technology and works as an Academy Research Fellow at the University of Turku, Department of Finnish History. Her research interests range from self-made bicycles on the 19 ^th century Finnish countryside and the role of trees in the history of urban activism to the history of speech synthesis and the material activity of kerbstones. During the most recent years, she has published widely on especially the history of urban space and urban traffic.

Reeta E. Kangas: From Hedonist to Hero – The Origin Story of the Russian Superhero Friar

The production of Russian superhero comics to a larger audience begun after the establishment of the publishing house Bubble Comics, which is the largest comics publisher in Russia. In 2012, Bubble started producing superhero comics. Bubble’s methods of production and the style of their comics are highly influenced by such North American publishers of superhero comics as Marvel and DC. The Bubble universe started with four superheroes, each with their own series. One of the original Bubble superheroes is Friar (Inok), whose adventures through time and parallel worlds take place in a fantasy comic series by the same name. Friar was published during 2012–2016.

The series Friar narrate the journey of the main character Andrey Radov from a hedonistic andegoistic youth into a patriotic and altruistic superhero Friar, whose destiny is to protect Russia against invading demonic and Earthly enemies. The first two albums of Friar portray the tragic origin story of the superhero. Andrey’s becoming a superhero consists of a myriad of beginnings, which all are connected to a family relic – a cross dating to the legendary baptism of Vladimir I in 988. In this presentation, I examine how Andrey turns into Friar and accepts his duty as the defender of Russia. More specifically, I concentrate on how Friar’s origin story connects with Russian Orthodox Christianity, and how his characteristics, appearance and actions relate to religious practices.

Bio:

Reeta E. Kangas is a postdoctoral researcher of Art History at the University of Turku. She is specialised in Soviet and Russian visual culture.

Oskari Rantala: Medium-Specific Narrative Strategies and Medial Self-Awareness in the Comics of Alan Moore

A major transition in the mainstream Anglo-American comics narratives during the last decades has been the increasing reflexive use of genre history, the mediality of comics, and the materiality of comic books as objects. In superhero comics, specifically, a subcultural literacy connected to the genre and medium has been developing since the 1960s, but it became increasingly prominent closer to the end of the millennium. One comics creator whose works are habitually brought to the fore as examples of these developments is writer Alan Moore.

In my paper, I examine medium-specific narrative strategies and medial self-awareness in Moore’s works. I am interested in narrative phenomena which are not available as such outside the realm of the comics medium and whose narrative potential relies on the mediality or medium-specificity of comics in some shape or form.

These techniques take center stage especially in several of Moore’s later works published around and after the turn of the millennium in an attempt to offer an alternative vision or new beginnings for the superhero genre after the boom of ”grim and gritty” superheroes. Instead of the supposed nihilism of revisionist superhero narratives, these works can be considered to emphasize metatextuality, the materiality of comics, retro aesthetic, and forms of narrative self-consciousness.

Bio

Oskari Rantala is finalizing his doctoral thesis at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, on medium-specific narrative strategies and medial self-awareness in the comics of Alan Moore.

Jenniliisa Salminen: Back to the Beginnings – Translating Irrealia Back to the ”Original” Language

In speculative fiction, authors frequently use irrealia to depict imaginary cultures or secondary worlds. The term irrealia is rooted in translation studies, and it refers to phenomena that exist only in a certain fictional culture and, like realia that have their references in real existing cultures, do not have an equivalent in the target language. Translators use different strategies to translate realia into the target languages, and often the same tactics can be used in translating irrealia.

However, some authors have used existing languages and cultures as an inspiration for their imaginary worlds which also affects the irrealia they use. In this presentation, I am going to explore the American fantasy author Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone trilogy (2012–2014) set in the world of “Grishaverse” that is inspired by imperial Russian history and culture. The books are abundant with words derived from Russian language – both common names and proper names.

I am particularly interested in examining the treatment of these irrealia in the Russian translation of the books by Anastasia Harčenko. How have these “Russian sounding” words been translated into actual contemporary Russian language? Which translation strategies have been used? Bardugo’s Russian inspired vocabulary is notoriously out of sync with actual Russian language both in the sense of grammar and meaning, creating additional challenges for the translator. For instance, how has the translator addressed instances where the grammatical gender of personal names in the original text conflicts with Russian cultural and linguistic expectations?

Bio:

Jenniliisa Salminen, PhD, is a university lecturer of Russian language and translation in University of Helsinki. She is currently interested in Russian and Slavic thematics in fantasy literature written outside Russia.