Meet The Translator: Jenni Salmi Presents The Black Tongue

Join Folio Seattle and the Northwest Interpreters and Translators Society in celebrating the gift translators have to offer, and expand your view of universal literature with a series of monthly presentations featuring local translators and their books.

The Black Tongue is Finnish horror and suspense author Marko Hautala’s first novel in the English language market. It combines cultural anthropology and sociology together with Lovecraftian unknowable horrors to create an unsettling atmosphere that makes you want to look twice when you spot an odd-shaped burl on a tree or hear an urban legend that you’ve previously dismissed as a silly story. It asks the question: what if urban legends are the true cautionary tales of our modern era, even when they involve a murderous granny who keeps a small community in check with her hatchet? 

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Jenni Salmi likes to describe herself as an all-around language nerd: she gained her Master’s in English literature in Joensuu (“Yo-enh-soo”), Finland, whilst teaching Finnish as a Second Language for immigrants and exchange students, and English for graduate students. On her free time she freelanced as a software and hardware localizer.

Upon arriving in the United States 12 years ago she continued to teach Finnish to anyone even remotely interested in the language, and began to work as a copy editor after gaining the editor’s certification through the University of Washington. She soon added fiction and nonfiction translations onto her plate, in addition to working at a video game company where she started as a localizer and now keeps an eye on the non-English speaking customer and support agent experience.

Besides Hautala’s novel The Black Tongue, Jenni has also translated the popular crime novelist Leena Lehtolainen’s The Bodyguard Trilogy, and a variety of samples for literary agencies.