Author: Chiara

Rival to the Cotton Mill by Ann-Christin Antell, The Ribbon Bow by Anu Kaaja and Beasts of the Sea by Iida Turpeinen are among the nominees for this year’s Adlibris Award.

Three of the hot titles of last year’s Finnish fiction are now running for another accolade: Rival to the Cotton Mill by Ann-Christin Antell, The Ribbon Bow by Anu Kaaja, and Beasts of the Sea by Iida Turpeinen are among the nominees for Adlibris Award in the category of the best novel of the year. The winner for each category is voted by readers on Adlibris.

Adlibris is a large and popular online bookshop founded in Stockholm and active in Sweden, Finland and Norway. The Adlibris Award ails from the company’s native Sweden, where it was established in 2019, and it is being awarded in Finland for the first time this year.

Rival to the Cotton Mill is the third instalment in the Cotton Mill Trilogy by Ann-Christin Antell. The series sold over 140.000 copies in Finland alone, and is a perfect combination of romance, history, entertainment and the fight for workers’ rights. The series starts out in the late 1800s and lands in the Roaring Twenties.

The Ribbon Bow is the fourth novel by award-winning author Anu Kaaja and it is currently nominated for the Runeberg Prize, the second largest and most prestigious award in the country. The novel follows a heartbroken writer who sets out on a European trip in the style of the Grand Tour, visiting museums and enjoying art. The writer’s wanderings bring a fresh, at times irreverent perspective on some of the world’s most famous works of art and is a razor-sharp criticism of capitalism and the objectification of humans at the expense of the humanisation of objects. Everyday objects, like a bow, a coffee cup and a napkin, come to life and engage in conversation, while the human characters are difficult to reach and even harder to let go of.

Beasts of the Sea by Iida Turpeinen has been the literary sensation of 2023 from Finland, and has so far travelled to 21 language territories. This stunning debut and winner of the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize ties together an extinct sirenian, Steller’s sea cow, and the fates of the humans that tried to put together its skeleton across the centuries. The result is a spellbinding adventure and an enchanting portrayal of a lost creature.

Warmest congratulations to the nominees and the publishers, and fingers crossed!

Helsinki Literary Agency joins Lit-Quest Europe Program with Slovenian Goga and Croatian Sandorf.

We are thrilled to announce that 2024 is starting on a high note for our agency: Helsinki Literary Agency is a part of Lit-Quest Europe, a project supported by EU Creative Europe Program. This exciting project aims at building and improving the skills of literary agents and enables encounters between literary professionals, locally and internationally.

As part of the project, we join forces with publishing houses and literary agencies Goga Publishing (Slovenia) and Sandorf (Croatia) in launching an Open Call for the Literary Professionals Residence Program for 2024.

The Literary Professionals Residence Program for 2024 is open to welcome a total of 9 literary professionals, both literary agents and editors, from all eligible countries. The fellows will participate in a residency either in Novo Mesto (Slovenia), Zagreb (Croatia) or here in Helsinki. Each residency will have a duration of 5 days and will be scheduled between June 1st and November 30th, 2024.

The deadline for applications is February 15th 2024, and the link to the application form can be found here. See below the full open call with more information.

Don’t miss out on this fantastic project, and stay tuned!

Open Call for Literary Professionals Residence Program 2024

The Literary Professionals Residence Program is a part of the Lit-Quest Europe project, which is a cooperative initiative involving Publishing House Goga (Slo), Sandorf (Cro), and Helsinki Literary Agency (Fi). The Lit-Quest Europe project receives support from the EU Creative Europe program.

The Literary Professionals Residence Program for 2024 is open to welcome literary agents and editors from all eligible countries within the EACEA program:

EU Countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
Non-EU Countries: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

The program particularly emphasizes literary professionals who possess extensive experience in their field, are accustomed to delivering lectures, and are proficient in the English language. We aim to enable the participation of literary professionals of all ages and genders, with a common criterion: their knowledge will have a meaningful impact on the countries of their residence. For the year 2024, the call for applications is open for 9 literary professionals. Each residency will have a duration of 5 days, scheduled between June 1st and November 30th, 2024.

Number of Residencies:
• Goga Publishing (Slovenia – Novo mesto): 3 residencies
• Sandorf (Croatia – Zagreb): 3 residencies
• Helsinki Literary Agency (Finland – Helsinki): 3 residencies

The fellowship for literary professionals will include:
• A 5-night stay in an apartment
• Travel costs (up to 500 EUR)
• Accommodation costs (up to 150 EUR per night)
• Subsistence costs (50 EUR per person)
• Lecture Fee (300 EUR)
• Selected literary professionals will be required to complete a questionnaire provided by
literary agents who are also part of this project.
• Lectures will be recorded and disseminated on the project page.
• All literary professionals will have the opportunity to meet local literary professionals of the host country and other individuals from the publishing field.

The application should include:
• A concise Curriculum Vitae
• Full contact information (phone number and email address)
• Information about the field of profession
• Photograph (for promotional purposes)
• Consent statement regarding the recording of the lecture
All application materials should be submitted in English. The application deadline is February 15th 2024.

The selection will be conducted by the Board of the Lit-Quest Europe Project.
For additional questions regarding the call, please contact via email: lit-quest@goga.si.
Applicants will be notified of the jury’s decision via email by Thursday, February 22th, 2024.

You can find the application on the following link: https://forms.gle/ainK6og4nGgmK9mE8

Beasts of the Sea, the wildly successful debut of author Iida Turpeinen, continues to stun the international publishing scene. The title is now travelling to Japan and the Arabic world, marking 22 language territories.

Stunning news for our fiction list: Beasts of the Sea, the literary sensation from Finland of 2023 by author Iida Turpeinen, continues to enchant publishers all over the world. The rights have now been acquired for both Japanese and World Arabic, marking 22 language territories for this title.

The Japanese rights have been acquired by Kawade Shobo Shinsha, one of Japan’s leading publishers of books, in a deal brought to us by Tuttle Mori Literary Agency. Kawade Shobo Shinsha have over a century of experience in the publishing industry, having started in 1886. They have since then been the home of domestic bestsellers like Amy Yamada’s “Bed Time-Eyes” (1985) and Machi Tawara’s “Salad Memorial Day”(1987) and of international authors of high profile like Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Vladmir Nabokov, and Desmond Morris, among others.

The World Arabic rights have been acquired by Al Arabi, an Egypt-based publishing house that is the home to a wide range of international authors, from Frantz Kafka, Peter Handke and Herman Koch to Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, Jon Gnarr and many others, including fellow Finnish authors Sofi Oksanen and Juhani Karila.

Beasts of the Sea is a spellbinding story of long-gone species and human destinies where an unknown sirenian is discovered by biologist Georg Vilhelm Steller, who plans on bringing its skeleton to Europe to study it, until fate gets in the way: Steller dies before succeeding, and the sea cow goes extinct in a mere couple of decades due to human greed. Thus begins the quest for the skeleton of this lost creature, in an attempt to bring back what mankind has destroyed.

Beasts of the Sea has enchanted readers and critics in Finland, where it also won the Helsingin Sanomat literary prize for the best debut last autumn, and publishers everywhere, receiving extensive attention and media coverage even internationally.

Author Iida Turpeinen (b. 1987) is a Helsinki-based literary scholar currently writing a dissertation on the intersection of the natural sciences and literature.

Warmest congratulations to the author and the publishers!

A Wooden Prayer by Antti Hurskainen has now been sold to Denmark, marking the 2nd foreign territory for this title, which has received four literary prize nominations over the last few months.

Fantastic news for our fiction list: A Wooden Prayer by Antti Hurskainen is travelling to Denmark, where it will be published by Jensen & Dalgaard.

A Wooden Prayer by Antti Hurskainen has received extensive attention domestically, with four literary prize nominations and praising reviews. The book was a Finlandia Prize nominee, and a Torch-bearer Prize nominee this autumn, and it is still running for both the Runeberg Prize and the Savonia Award. The Helsingin Sanomat newspaper has reviewed it as an“intellectually stimulating novel glows with negativity. […] A Wooden Prayer is a harsh novel that has little regard for curling into an armchair.”

The novel has already travelled to Hungary, where it will be published by Polar.

A Wooden Prayer follows Turtola, the verger  in a small congregation in the countryside. He spends his days sawing wood, raking the churchyard, praying, and taking his five-year-old daughter Monika to the nursery.  Sirén, the vicar, is getting more and more dependent on alcohol whilst trying to write his doctorate and tolerate God’s silence. The two have topics to talk about: the director Ingmar Bergman, theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, arson in Kiihtelysvaara’s church, public displays of apology and the comedy of the grim reaper.

But then, Monika’s health takes a turn for the worse and Turtola is abruptly faced with an impossible choice. Turtola chooses mercy, and the consequences are merciless, resulting in a novel that asks big and difficult questions about ethos, life, death and religion.

Jensen & Dalgaard is a Danish independent publishing house which has rapidly become the Danish home of many highly praised and well-loved Finnish authors such as Matias Riikonen, Anu Kaaja, Leena Krohn and Pauliina Rauhala.

Warm congratulations to the author and the publisher!

Rival to the Cotton Mill, the 3rd volume in the Cotton Mill Trilogy by Ann-Christin Antell, has been ranked in the top 10 most listened books of 2023 on Bookbeat Finland. In Sweden the 2nd volume, Heir To The Cotton Mill, has just been welcomed on Storytel Sweden. The series, sold to five countries so far, has been a sensational bestseller in Finland.

Wonderful news for our author Ann-Christin Antell: the wildly successful Cotton Mill Trilogy has been confirmed as a readers’ favourite and the third book in the series, Rival to the Cotton Mill, in ranked in the Top 10 of the year’s most listened books on Bookbeat for 2023.

In Sweden, Heir To The Cotton Mill (Swedish title: Bomullsfabrikens arvtagare) has just been welcomed after the fantastic success of the first volume.

The Cotton Mill Trilogy has been a sensational bestseller in Finland, with over 140.000 sold copies in Finland alone, proving that entertainment and quality are not mutually exclusive. This masterfully constructed series follows three generations of women, from the late 1800s leading up to the Roaring Twenties, skilfully combining romance, Finnish history, the fight for workers’ rights and feminism.

The Shadow of the Cotton Mill depicts the life of an independent woman, Jenny Malmström, in an era when industrialists make up the new elite, women demand equality, and Finland’s status as a nation is undergoing a transformation.

Heir to the Cotton Mill picks up the story of the Barker family that began in The Shadow of the Cotton Mill. It is now the early 20th century, and Finland’s cultural elite, with their strong sense of nationhood, find themselves at odds with Russia’s increasingly oppressive policies. Meanwhile, social mobility and working-class ideologies are on the rise.

Rival to the Cotton Mill is the final book of the Cotton Mill trilogy about the Barker family. It is the modern era of jazz and progress, and Jenny’s granddaughter and Martta’s daughter Paula has gained her position as the advertising manager of the mill. Times are changing, but fortunately there seems to be love left for the young ones, too.

So far, the Cotton Mill Trilogy has traveled to Denmark, France, Iceland, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Warm congratulations to the author, and don’t miss out on this series!