Month: December 2020

Wonderful news for Finland’s queen of crime Eva Frantz: Sekwa will start publishing her acclaimed Anna Glad series in Sweden!

Sekwa is a Swedish publishing house specialising in translated contemporary literature. Founded in 2005, it has a strong list of well-written, entertaining and captivating literature.

One of the major newspapers in Finland, Hufvudstadsbladet, has stated about The Blue Villa:

“Last year, Eva Frantz proved her significant talent as a cozy crime fiction author with her book Summer Isle. […] In The BlueVilla she has taken a further step in combining premeditated horrors with the aptly portrayed everyday life. […] She has limitless skill in describing petty crime – from just-about legal malice and revenge to browbeating your family with shitty behaviour.”

About The Eighth Maiden, the paper has stated:

“The crime plot is skillfully intertwined with a moral core. (…) Frantz is prompt and manages to capture something that is puzzling and frightening at the same time. (…) The Eighth Maiden explores the themes of abuse and sexual exploitation of young people, as well as the vicious culture of physical abuse that flourishes everywhere where there is money and power.”

Previously this year, World English rights for Frantz’s ghost and horror story for the middle grade readers, Raspberry Hill, were sold to Pushkin Press.

Congratulations to the author and the lucky crime fans in Sweden!

Finlandia Junior Prize winning RADIO POPOV by Anja Portin is getting a huge amount of attention, with an ongoing auction in Russia and an offer from Italy on the table.

Only a week has passed from the Finlandia Junior Prize celebration where Anja Portin’s middle-grade novel RADIO POPOV was awarded as the best children’s book of 2020, and the book has already found its way to the hearts of many European children’s book publishers. The rights of the warm-hearted adventure story, compared to such classics as Roald Dahl and Astrid Lindgren, has been so far sold to

Bulgaria, Perseus
Denmark, Staarup & co.
Estonia, Ühinenud ajakirjad
Latvia, Janis Roze
Lithuania, Alma littera
Netherlands, Ploegsma.

And there is more to come, as there is an ongoing auction in Russia and a fresh offer from Italy on the table – and loads of interest from other areas!

You can read more about the book here,
and more about the author here.

The Finlandia Prize news can be found here.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us (info@helsinkiagency.fi), if you wish to see the reading material!

Anu Kaaja’s latest novel Katie-Kate (2020) has been awarded Kalevi Jäntti Prize 2020.

The jury stated:
“Anu Kaaja’s Katie-Kate confuses even the most hard-core readers. What is the meaning of this provocative porn novel? What right has the author have to rub all this vocabulary, these images and this kind of material on our faces? Why should we get interested in a collage which combines princess fairy tales, celebrity culture and internet porn?

Anu Kaaja’s disturbing novel requires concentrating and overcoming the urge to reject it, but little by little it shows its integrity. An angry, feminist analysis of class and gender arise from the obscene carnivalism. Katie-Katie is, no doubt, an intellectual manifestation against the patriarchy, but what makes it an interesting novel is the sovereign and unscrupulous way it makes different genres collide with one another. The result is a sharp mixture, in which the most important ingredient is humour, sometimes incorrect and self-conscious. Katie-Kate is an outstanding, bold and original novel.”

In Katie-Kate, the stories of Kate Middleton, Katie Price and Princess Diana intertwine with main stream porn. A sharp societal analysis reveals a world in which Disney owns nostalgy, Pornhub owns lust and independent women choose to be enslaved princesses.

Kaaja says she’s grown up in an age when the roles women play in media have changed a lot in a short time. “The strong female characters that have become visible in entertainment have not shifted the focus from the looks and appearances. In Katie-Kate I deal with learned misogyny, the work it takes to maintain good looks, ‘Disney brainwashing’ and my mixed relationship with marriage as an institution.”

Anu Kaaja (b. 1984) is an author and scriptwriter. Her debut novel Metamorphoslip (2015) was awarded with Jarkko Laine Prize and nominated for Helsingin Sanomat Literary Award. Her second novel Leda (2017) won Toisinkoinen literature prize and was nominaterd for Runeberg Award.