Month: September 2019

Autumn season has started off… well, quite amazingly for us. In addition to the sales of Piia Leino’s novel Heaven and Juhani Karila’s Fishing for the Little Pike earlier this month, we are now happy to announce two more.

Minna Rytisalo’s awarded bestseller Lempi has been sold to Jumava, one of the biggest publishers in Latvia. The novel has recently won the public vote in Helmet – Helsinki Metropolitan Library – Literature Prize competition. The prize is given yearly to a future classic of Finnish literature. In addition to that, it was shortlisted as the favourite book by German-speaking booksellers in Switzerland, also for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, the Runeberg Prize and the Lappi Literature Prize. It won the Blogistania Finlandia Prize, voted by Finnish bloggers as the best novel of 2016, the Thank You for the Book Prize awarded by the Finnish Booksellers’, Librarians’ and Libraries Associations, and the Botnia Prize. The novel has sold over 25,000 copies so far, and it is the fourth foreign rights sale for it.

Matti Airola’s cheerful and inventive Dads’ and Daughters’ Braiding Book has been sold to Fragment, an imprint of Albatros, the biggest publisher in Czech Republic. It is the sixth foreign rights sale for the book, which was a huge commercial success in Finland upon its release.

Congratulations to the authors!

Finally, they are here! Autumn adults’ and children’s catalogues are ready and can be now easily found on our website, under the Catalogues tab.

Autumn list is big and colourful, for we try to provide something for each reader and taste: from commercial chick-lit and crime to almost experimental literary fiction; from entertaining narrative nonfiction to powerful and rather dark auto-fiction. And we are truly happy to see that catalogues have already received a lot of positive feedback.

In addition to some titles we already added in spring, such as enthralling narratives from the Finnish periphery by Niina Miettinen and Johanna Laitila, we also have a lot of exciting news: two Finlandia Prize winners (Mikko Rimminen and Riikka Pelo), a spectacular novelty in Arto Paasilinna’s spirit by the young Juhani Karila, which already raised an overwhelming attention from abroad, as well as one of the most talked-about debuts in Finland this autumn, Antti Rönkä. The non-fiction list is complemented with the new book by one of the most popular Finnish historians Teemu Keskisarja, and the children’s list shines with gorgeous illustrated fiction and non-fiction by Alexandra Salmela & Linda Bondestam, Tomi Kontio & Elina Warsta, Malin Klingenberg & Sanna Mander, Virpi Kaarina Talvitie et al. and others. You can find more information about our autumn highlights here.

We hope you will enjoy the browsing, and don’t hesitate to contact us (urte@helsinkiagency.fi) if you wish to see the materials. We are starting the season with Gothenburg this week, and will then continue with Frankfurt, Helsinki, Sharjah and Moscow international book fairs and Crossing Border Festival in Hague. If you’re there, let us know and come say hello! We wish you all a great start of this Autumn, and let the fun begin!

Minna Rytisalo’s novel Mrs C. has been nominated for the Botnia Prize. The nomination is Rytisalo’s second in the three-year-history of the competition: Rytisalo was awarded with the prize for her debut novel Lempi two years ago.

The jury’s statement of Mrs C. is as follows:

“Minna Rytisalo’s Mrs C. narrates the life of a young woman, little by little maturing with years and experiences, and its passions, desires, pains and sorrows. This life, put to pages, is the one of Minna Canth, one of the most significant Finnish authors. Mrs C. reshapes the solidified and dusty national icon, put on the pedestal by the literary establishment, to a woman in flesh and full blood, to an exciting and intriguing person with unfeigned and sincere thoughts. The reader starts to value the national author in a totally new manner as a person worth knowing. The fictional life story, created for the novel, does a favour to the reading public and to the public image of the author Minna Canth.”

Read more about Mrs C. here and about Minna Rytisalo here.

In addition to Mrs C, there are seven other books nominated for the prize. The head of the jury, professor Sanna Karkulehto, stated that “the toplist of the quality literature with international level seems to get longer each year”.

Botnia Prize is a literary award given to the best book of the year written by an author from North Ostrobothnia. It is one of the biggest Finnish literary awards (10,000 euros), and it recognizes no genre nor language limitations.