The Thirteen Symphonies of Viktor Stanislaus by Anna-Liisa Ahokumpu is travelling to Hungary, where it will be published by Polar.
Lovely news for one of our backlist gems: The Thirteen Symphonies of Viktor Stanislaus by Anna-Liisa Ahokumpu is travelling to Hungary, where it will be published by Polar.
In The Thirteen Symphonies of Viktor Stanislaus by Anna-Liisa Ahokumpu (Gummerus, 2018) we follow Max Halma, a butterfly collector whose life is disrupted by his mother’s death: among her things, he finds a rare butterfly, that could bring him greater success than ever before, but also documents about his late father, who supposedly died a week after his birth in 1942.
Max is intrigued, and finds himself led to archives in Northern Finland and then a pianist’s last concert in Hamburg, until the truth is finally revealed.
Author Anna-Liisa Ahokumpu’s tender first novel is like an enigmatic concert from a family’s life: obsessions, family secrets and voices that should not be silenced. The book was nominated for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, given to the best debut novel of the year, for the Botnia Prize, and the Lapland Literature Prize.
Author Anna-Liisa Ahokumpu (b. 1984) made her debut as novelist with The Thirteen Symphonies of Viktor Stanislaus. In Finland, her production is published by Gummerus.
Polar is a Hungarian publishing house specialised in Nordic literature. It is the Hungarian home of, among others, Iida Turpeinen‘s Beasts of the Sea, Antti Hurskainen‘s A Wooden Prayer, Laura Lindstedt and Sinikka Vuola‘s 101 Ways To Kill Your Husband, and Kari Hotakainen’s Pearl.
Congratulations to the author and the publisher!