- Source: Jaana Kapari-Jatta
Jaana Marjatta Kapari-Jatta (born 19 May 1955, in Turku) is a Finnish translator of fiction, best known for her Finnish-language renderings of the Harry Potter novels and supplementary books by J. K. Rowling, including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. In her translations of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages, she used the pseudonym “Kurvaa Aka (Whoss Gue)”.
Kapari-Jatta has also translated several other English-language authors, like Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, and Roald Dahl, into Finnish. Among the awards she has received are the Astrid Lindgren Prize of the International Federation of Translators in 2002 and the Finnish State Prize for Children's Culture in 2007. In 2014 she received the J. A. Hollo Prize for her translation of Virginia Woolf’s book The Death of the Moth and Other Essays. In 2022, she received a honoris causa doctorate from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Helsinki.
In 2008, she published a fact book, Pollomuhku ja Posityyhtynen, where she discusses translating the Harry Potter novels.
Kapari-Jatta is married and has three children and also grandchildren. She resides in Loviisa, Finland, and in Serekunda, Gambia.
Translated books
= Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling
=Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Quidditch Through the Ages
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay
= Other books (selection)
=The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More by Roald Dahl
Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene
Collected Stories by Edgar Allan Poe
Ottoline and the Yellow Cat by Chris Riddell
Holes by Louis Sachar
Diana: The Last Year by Donald Spoto
Mr Gum series by Andy Stanton
Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers
The Happy Prince and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde
