By turns ironic and uproarious, "The Thirty Years' War" is about a soldier who carried on World War II by himself, years after it officially ended. In satirizing war and the making of a war hero, the controversial Finland-Swedish writer Henrik Tikkanen gives many a nod to American culture and the American military. His comic novel, reminiscent of the best writing of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., is now available in English, ten years after its original publication in Finland.The twenty drawings are by Tikkanen, a noted artist and caricaturist as well as author. "The Thirty Years' War" was translated into English by George and Lone Thygesen Blecher, who were named Translators of the Year in 1984 by the American Library Association. The afterword is by George C. Schoolfield, chairman of the Department of Germanic Languages at Yale University, and an authority on Scandinavian literature.

Translated by: G. Blecher, L.T. Blecher