Month: October 2024

National Geographic launches a monumental documentary about Endurance, the legendary ship on which Ernest Shackleton sailed to Antarctica, and the wreck of which was found by Endurance22, with author Jukka Tuhkuri as a member of the expedition.

The ship Endurance has long been shrouded in myths and legends: led by Ernest Shackleton, this Antarctic expedition became the second most famous shipwreck in history after the Titanic, and its fate and exact location remained a mystery for over 100 years. In 2022 the Endurance22 expedition, consisting of an international team of researchers including professor Jukka Tuhkuri, traveled to Antarctica with the goal of finding Endurance, and succeeded.

This is the premise and the subject of Jukka Tuhkuri‘s book Endurance: One Myth, Two Journeys and The Weight of Ice, and it is also the premise of Endurance, the monumental documentary launched by National Geographic on October 14th. The documentary, which has been featured on the BBC, The Guardian and the Telegraph, gives ample space to the figure of Shackleton and the original Endurance expedition, so readers who are thirsty for answers and modern-day adventure will want to pick up Tuhkuri’s book even more after this.

At the dawn of 1910s, all the major conquests in the name of science and exploration seemed to have been accomplished, but traversing Antarctica from shore to shore was still up for grabs, and Ernest Shackleton wasn’t going to waste his time watching someone else do it. 

This was the beginning of one of the most legendary expeditions of all times, entwined in tales and myths that have inspired numbers of books, films, and other works of art ever since. At the same time, hardly any evidence or real knowledge has been gathered about the reasons behind the sinking of Endurance, and only very few have reached even the proximity of history’s second most famous shipwreck.  

In 2022, members of the international Endurance22 expedition team boarded an ice-breaking research ship built in Finland, with the mission to locate Endurance lying more than 3000 m deep beneath the surface of Weddell Sea – and succeeded. 

In his book, ice researcher Jukka Tuhkuri, retells the Shackleton myth in a new light. In addition to the historical events leading to the original expedition, as well as his own experiences on the Antarctic journey, Tuhkuri sheds light on the work of polar researchers a hundred years ago and now. While scientists on Endurance tried to understand what sea ice is and how it moves, modern researchers consider how climate change is affecting it, and what it means to sea travels and our future.

Drawing on mythical past and state-of-the-art research on climate change, Endurance: One Myth, Two Journeys and the Weight of Ice is set to become the hot non-fiction book of autumn 2024. In Finland, the book is published by Siltala.

Eva Frantz’s Anna Glad series is travelling to Bulgaria where it will be published by Perseus in a five-book deal.

Crime readers rejoice: the successful Anna Glad series by Eva Frantz is continuing its journey out into the world, and is now travelling to Bulgaria, where it will be published by Perseus.

The Anna Glad series follows detective Anna Glad, a refreshingly relatable 30-something police officer based on the western, Swedish-speaking coast of Finland. Her cases are the perfect middle way between hard-boiled Nordic noirs and cozy crime and have been reviewed as Strömsö noir: Anna Glad and her team investigate serious, violent crimes, but enough space is given to the characters’ daily lives and struggles that some comic relief is present, and there’s room for reflections that go beyond the scope of the single bloody event.

The series peaked last summer with Then Die Contentedly, a masterfully composed detective story where nothing is as it seems. It follows four old friends who gather for a late summer party and spend the night under the same roof, but the following morning only two of them wake up: one of them is missing, and the other is lying dead in the pool. The victim, a star lawyer who’d just divorced an abusive husband, knew a lot of secrets about the people in her life, but as the investigation continues it turns out that she was the one with the most secrets to hide.

The previous books in the series, Blue Villa (#1), The Eighth Maiden (#2), Out of the Game(#3), and You Will Not Take My Child(#4), have become readers’ favourite in Finland, selling over 100.000 copies, and gathering rave reviews. The series has already travelled to Denmark, Estonia, Germany and Norway.

Perseus is a Bulgarian publishing house with a broad selection of great international literature. Their list includes the works of Tom Egeland, Jan Guillou, Sofi Oksanen, and Kjell Westö, to name a few.

Congratulations to the author and the publisher!

Matias Riikonen, the author of Matara, is touring Germany in a series of upcoming events, author discussions and panels to celebrate the publication of the German edition of Matara by Karl Rauch Verlag.

Monday October 14th Matias Riikonen will be in an author conversation with his German translator Maximilian Murmann at 19 in Berlin, at the Nordic Embassies Felleshus. The conversation will center around Matara, the fictional world of the book, and its themes.

Matara is the story of boys who spend their summers building realms of their own. Senators scheme in togas made of sheets, mannequins make for wives, and circus entertainments are devised to thrill the charcoal-whiskered rabble. 

A blow from a wooden sword means a death from which there is no return. And foreign people are treated the way they generally are: pitilessly. With the cruel nations of yore prowling the borders of the Republic of Matara, neither birthright nor wealth excuse one from the military drills that ensure the realm’s safety.  Under the guidance of his older brother, a young boy trains to be a scout. While spying, the pair come upon an enemy camp: war is at hand.

Matias Riikonen’s fourth novel takes children seriously in a way few other works have. In Riikonen’s hands, the birdsong-filled woods of early summer and the boys’ violence and tenderness meld into superb, startling literature. At times one forgets one is reading a portrayal of boys at play; at others, one fears one is reading a description of reality.

Mark your calendars, and don’t miss out on this event!

Author Pirkko Saisio has been on tour in the Netherlands, attending the ILFU literature festival and having discussions and presentations in bookshops.

ILFU is the biggest literature festival in the Netherlands, lasting over two weeks and hosting over 200 authors and dozens of thousands of visitors. Started 20 years ago as a poetry event, ILFU is now one of the beating hearts of the Dutch literary scene of all genres, ranging from YA to non-fiction.

Saisio’s Helsinki Trilogy, a Finnish modern classic now established as world-class literature, is out in Dutch in a beautiful edition by De Geus.

The trilogy consists of The Lowest Common Multiple, The Backlight, and Pirkko Saisio: The Red Book of Farewells and it is the first work by a living Finnish author to be included in the Penguin Modern Classics list. Its international success also extends to the French-speaking world, where the trilogy is published by Robert Laffont, Germany, where it is published by Klett Cotta, and more.

Author Pirkko Saisio has recently welcomed her latest novel, Suliko, where a raw and poetic narration takes the reader on a deep dive into the mind of a dictator.

Congratulations to the author!

Iida Rauma’s Destruction, the winner of Finlandia Prize 2022, is travelling to the Czech Republic, where the book will be published by Argo. This is the 4th language territory for the title.

Destruction by Iida Rauma quickly caught critics’ and readers’ attention when it came out in 2022 thanks to its combination of a strong and captivating literary voice, an impressive thematic depth and the ability to bring to the fore a social issue often overlooked: how children are treated in society. In Destruction, Rauma turns the spotlight onto violence in schools, but builds the theme into even bigger issues: how the strong always tend to exercise their power on the weaker ones.

The book follows A, a young teacher and bullying survivor, whose past catches up with her during a nightly jog around the city of Turku. A familiar figure triggers a series of memories and events that take A on a deep dive into the personal destruction she escaped, into the collective destruction suffered by her city in the past, and the one suffered by our planet’s ecosystem right now.

According to Turun Sanomat newspaper, the novel is “a dazzling demonstration of art’s potential to expose societal structures”.

Destruction has been previously sold to Rámus in Sweden – where the Swedish edition was received with rave reviews and extensive coverage – to Jensen & Dalgaard in Denmark and to Magvető in Hungary. In Finland, it is published by Siltala.

Argo is a major Czech publisher with a broad selection of high-quality domestic and international fiction. They are the Czech publisher of, among others, Umberto Eco, Kazuo Ishiguro, Leïla Slimani, Margaret Atwood, Peter Høeg and Sally Rooney.

Warm congratulations to the author and the publisher!