A Way to Measure Time is an anthology of contemporary Finnish poetry and prose, with texts ranging from 1945 to the present. Included is work by a total of 86 authors, most of it translated here for the first time. The texts reflect the social changes that inform the writing; during the half-century covered by this anthology, Finland has developed from a traditional agrarian society to a post-industrial one. The book begins with literary realism and progresses through modernism to contemporary post-modernist texts: 150 years of world literary development condensed, in Finland, into a span of 50 years.