Author: Chiara Stanziani

Beasts of the Sea is travelling to Iceland, where it will be published by Benedikt.

Iida Turpeinen’s Beasts of the Sea continues its global triumph: Benedikt has acquired the rights in Iceland, marking 28 foreign territories for this wildly successful title.

Beasts of the Sea is a literary achievement and a breathtaking adventure through three centuries. Approaching natural diversity through individual destinies, it’s a story of grand human ambitions and the urge to resurrect what humankind in its ignorance has destroyed. Steller’s sea cow, a sirenian lost to extinction centuries ago, is revived on the pages and is the red thread that ties together the individual fates of a group of people throughout the centuries.

The novel is the winner of the Book Beat Newcomer Award, The Thank You for the Book Award, Finland’s booksellers’ prize, the best debut award, the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, the Storytel award, and a nominee for Finland’s biggest literary award, the Finlandia Prize, as well as for the Torch-bearer Prize. Its international breakthrough has been acknowledged for example by the Bookseller.

In Finland, Beasts of the Sea is published by Kustantamo S&S, part of Schildts & Söderströms and it has already sold 50.000 copies in Finland alone.

Iida Turpeinen (b. 1987) is a Helsinki-based literary scholar currently writing a dissertation on the intersection of the natural sciences and literature. As an author, she is intrigued by the literary potentials of scientific research and by the offbeat anecdotes and meanderings from the history of science. 

Benedikt is an Icelandic publishing house with a broad and high-quality selection of domestic and translated works. They are the publisher of Jón Kalman Stefánsson and Au∂ur Ava Olafsdóttir, and the Icelandic home of Tove Ditlevsen, Sally Rooney, and Elena Ferrante, among others.

Congratulations to the author and the publishers!

Storytel has acquired Ann-Christin Antell’s Christmas at the Cotton Mill, a festive short story collection.

Icelandic readers rejoice: Ann-Christin Antell‘s Christmas at the Cotton Mill is travelling to Iceland, where it will be published by Storytel.

Christmas at the Cotton Mill is a festive collection of short stories set in the same fictional world as the successful Cotton Mill trilogy, which follows three generations of the Barker family throughout the decades.

Christmas at the Cotton Mill follows each of the three generations giving readers new insight into their family life, Christmas traditions, and backstory. In Loviisa’s Christmas, the first short story, we follow Jenny’s aunt Loviisa as she is waiting for her husband’s return and is faced with the choice between doing the right thing and helping a woman in need, who has been shunned by society, or doing the respectable thing and siding with the rest of the community. Thankfully, both a happy ending and a cheerful Christmas are in the cards.

In Christmas at the Örndahl Ironworks Martta Barker is a teenager spending Christmas with her foster parents Jenny and Frederik. She has a crush on one of the local young men, Anton, and hopes he will ask her to dance at the Christmas party, but things take an unexpected turn when her little brother falls through the ice into the river. Is their Christmas ruined? Or can tiding of comfort and joy still reach them?

In Christmas at the Falke Castle it is 1939 and Paula Falke (née Barker) is charged with planning Christmas for the whole family and the workers of the factory while her husband is fighting at the front. A happy ending seems impossible, but hope springs everlasting and the Falke family is in for a joyful Christmas after all.

Storytel is publishing in Icelandic the Cotton Mill trilogy, and is thrilled to continue with Antell’s production. In Finland, Christmas at the Cotton Mill is published by Gummerus.

Congratulations to the author and the publishers!

The accolades keep rolling in for Beasts of the Sea: the title has been awarded the Book Beat Newcomer Award for the best debut of the past year on their platform. The award is given to the most listened title with the best reader reviews.

The Book Beat statements highlights that “Beasts of the Sea has charmed readers and listeners throughout the entire year. […] The reader of the audiobook is Marcus Bäckman.”

Author Iida Turpeinen has commented as follows:

“I’m happy and impressed with every listener, who followed along with enthusiasm the story of the sea cow. A particularly warm thank you to Markus Bäckman, whose insightful reading brought the book to life with a skill and sensibility that I can’t help but admire. A warm thank you for this fantastic recognition”

Beasts of the Sea is a literary achievement and a breathtaking adventure through three centuries. Approaching natural diversity through individual destinies, it’s a story of grand human ambitions and the urge to resurrect what humankind in its ignorance has destroyed. Steller’s sea cow, a sirenian lost to extinction centuries ago, is revived on the pages and is the red thread that ties together the individual fates of a group of people throughout the centuries.

The novel is an international hit, already sold to 27 language territories, and has been celebrated as the hot book of 2023.

Iida Turpeinen (b. 1987) is a Helsinki-based literary scholar currently writing a dissertation on the intersection of the natural sciences and literature. As an author, she is intrigued by the literary potentials of scientific research and by the offbeat anecdotes and meanderings from the history of science. 

Warmest congratulations to the author!

Radio Popov by Anja Portin has enchanted Korea: the Korean edition, published by Dasan Books, has been welcomed with great success, and has been featured on the Korean School Library Journal. The reading public and booksellers have also welcomed the book favourably, and a book shop has organised a Radio Popov-themed evening with readings from the book and snacks consisting of Finnish apple pie.

Radio Popov is one of the greatest successes as far as Finnish children’s books go: it won the Finlandia Prize upon its release, and has already travelled to 25 language territories.

In it, we follow nine-year-old Alfred, who lives virtually alone. His mother has disappeared long ago, and his father, who stays away on business trips, doesn’t always seem to remember that Alfred exists. One night, Alfred sets off in the company of the mysterious Sneak, who puts things through letter- boxes – not just newspapers, but apples, woollen socks and sandwiches. Thus begins an unforgettable adventure that changes everything, and not just for Alfred. Sneak turns out the eccentric Amanda Lehtimaja, a paperwoman who is one of the Sharp Ears. At Amanda’s home Alfred finds an old radio transmitter designed by a Russian physicist, A. S. Popov. He starts making a secret, nightly radio broadcast that all the other forgotten children in the city listen to.

But how can Amanda and Alfred help the children, and what will Alfred’s father do when he notices that his son is gone? And who exactly are the Sharp Ears?

Radio Popov is an exciting and humorous, warm-hearted story that brings to mind the most beloved classics of children’s literature, like the novels of Roald Dahl and Astrid Lindgren, and it has established itself as a contemporary classic.

The Thick of the Forest by Linnea Kuuluvainen is nominated for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, awarded yearly to the best debut.

Breaking news from the Helsinki Book Fair: The Thick of the Forest by Linnea Kuuluvainen has been nominated for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, a yearly award for the best Finnish debut.

Helsingin Sanomat is the largest national newspaper in Finland, and this literary award dates back to 1995, and the winner will be announced on November 14th. Last year, the award went to Iida Turpeinen’s Beasts of the Sea.

The Thick of the Forest is set in a near future where nature has started fighting back against humanity, destroying the world as we know it. To escape nature’s vengeance and isolate themselves from it as well as they can, people have fled to small city-states surrounded by walls. One of them is the former city of Turku, where a tightly guarded Nation has been established. Ingrid grew up in this new world, and has lived all her life in the Nation. After her mother’s death, she gets a job with a research group called Wild Rosemary, whose task is to map the conditions outside the walls of the Nation. Although the forest has been pacified, it is still angry and dangerous, and soon there is discord among the researchers as well. 

Mixing elements from Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale in the unique setting of a Finnish forest capable of utter destruction, The Thick of the Forest is an entrancing and linguistically captivating first novel about a forest that haunts people and two women, Edla and Ingrid, whose stories intersect. The result is a rich telling of the relationship between mankind and nature, and of how the lines dividing them become increasingly blurry in the depth of the forest. In Finland, the book is published by Gummerus, and has been welcomed with glowing reviews by Finnish critics and media, where some hailed it as the best debut since Emmi Itäranta’s Memory of Water.

The foreign rights have so far been sold to Croatia, where the book will be published by Hangar 7.

In Finland, The Thick of the Forest is published by Gummerus.

Congratulations to the author and the publisher, and fingers crossed!