Author: Chiara Stanziani

Mark your calendars: author Susanna Hast is travelling to Germany this November, to attending the Nordic Literary Days event in Hamburg 24-27.11, and will also be travelling to Kiel and Berlin during the trip.

Author Susanna Hast has a doctorate in Social Sciences. She works as a researcher and Associate Professor at Uniarts Helsinki. She has researched war, compassion and corporality.

Her intimately personal debut novel Body of Evidence (2022) touches on the mechanisms of violence and trauma, and in conjunction, the silent war against women, one that leaves no trace in the history books. The book is out in German with Nautilus

Her second novel, Hopelessness (2025), is a novel about maternal rejection from an adult daughter’s perspective. The work approaches the internal violence of intimate relationships, the necessity of separation and the horror of duality.

The Mythicals series by Miila Westin continues in France as Sarbacane secures the rights to Fading Light, the third and final volume in the series.

Wonderful news for the popular Mythicals series by Miila Westin: the series is set to continue in France as Sarbacane has secured the rights to Fading Light, the third and final volume in the trilogy.

The Mythicals series follows Eevi, a young girl who finds out that the creatures of Finnish mythology are real and affect the world we live in. In Endless Winter (Mythicals #1) Eevi and a newfound group of friends team up to bring back spring during an endless winter caused by the witch Louhi, and in A Dangerous Dream (Mythicals #2) they clash with Louhi again as she is after a necklace that belongs to Eevi’s family. The tension peaks and the stakes rise in Fading Light (Mythicals #3) when Eevi and her friends must stop Louhi as she plots to destroy the world as mankind knows it.

Blending together mythology and reflections on climate change with colourful and atmospheric illustrations, the Mythicals series has been popular with readers and an international success, having already travelled to five foreign language territories.

Author and illustrator Miila Westin (b. 1987) has illustrated Radio Popov, the winner of The Finlandia Junior Prize (2020) sold to 26 foreign language territories. She graduated as Master of Arts in Visual Narrative from Aalto University of Arts and Design completing her thesis on the visualizations of Finnish mythical creatures. Her works are published in Finland by S&S.

Congratulations to the author and the publisher!

Authors Linda Bondestam, Sanna Mander, and Sanna Pelliccioni have been nominated for the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

Wonderful news: three of our talented authors and illustrators, Linda Bondestam, Sanna Mander, and Sanna Pelliccioni, have been nominated for this year’s prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award is awarded on a yearly basis to a person or organization for their contribution to children’s and YA literature. The award is administered by the Swedish Arts Council, in memory of world-famous Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. The winner will be announced in April 2026.

Linda Bondestam is one of the best-known Nordic illustrators. She has been a candidate for the Finlandia Junior and Astrid Lindgren Prizes as well as the Nordic Council’s Prize for Children’s and Young People’s Literature. HLA represents her The Fantastickle Friend, penned by Alexandra Salmela.

Sanna Mander is the author and illustrator of My Teeny-Tiny Witch, and The Lost Key, and has illustrated The Secret Life of Farts and The Spectacular Book of Princesses. My Teeny Tiny Witch received an honorary mention for the Rudolf Koivu Prize in 2023, and The Secret Life of Farts was an international success, sold to eight territories.

Sanna Pelliccioni is an established Finnish illustrator, who was awarded the Plaque Award at the Bratislava Biennale earlier this year for her illustrations of Sent Across The Sea. Sent Across the Sea is part of a trilogy by Eppu Nuotio & Sanna Pelliccioni presenting historical events through the eyes of children. The author duo’s latest work, Anteeksi (litt. “I’m sorry”, S&S 2025) was recently nominated for the Botnia award.

Warm congratulations – and fingers crossed!

Beasts of the Sea continues to make waves as the foreign editions roll in– mark your calendars for the upcoming English editions!

The foreign editions of Beasts of the Sea by Iida Turpeinen are conquering the international literary scene: over a dozen foreign are already out, and the British edition, published by MacLehose, will officially hit the shelves tomorrow, October 23rd – while the American edition, out with Little, Brown will land on November 18th.

Author Iida Turpeinen has been touring across Europe to promote the editions on a tight schedule: in mid September she visited Poland, where the Polish edition is out with Poznanskie and the book has been welcomed warmly. In early October Turpeinen attended the Folio Festival in Portugal, where Beasts of the Sea is published by Porto Editora.

Beasts of the Sea has also hit the shelves in Greece, where it is published by Ikaros, and has been welcomed with great reviews. On the Kathimerini newspaper the book has been reviewed commenting that “The author combines scientific accuracy with what has been going on in our minds for years now in the novels of American author Richard Powers. Her narrative is not linear but circular. It is as if she is following the biological rhythms dictated by nature itself. Her style is restrained and dense, but never cold. Here, nature is not a backdrop; it is the protagonist. And man does not stand above it, but within it. With all his mistakes, ambitions, and arrogance.“

In the lead-up to the release of the British edition the newspaper The Guardian has interviewed Turpeinen, diving into the themes of the book and exploring how the book was received both domestically and internationally.
Beasts of the Sea is a literary achievement and a breathtaking adventure through three centuries that approaches natural diversity through individual destinies. 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 won multiple awards, and was nominated for the Finlandia Prize domestically, and ran as the Best Foreign Book of the Year in France in 2024, and for the Premio Strega in Italy earlier this year.

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

The Thick of the Forest by Linnea Kuuluvainen continues its journey out into the world: Septime has secured the German rights, marking the fifth foreign deal for this title.

Linnea Kuuluvainen‘s brilliant debut The Thick of the Forest continues to enchant foreign publishers: it is now travelling to the German-speaking world, where it will be published by Septime. This is the fifth foreign deal for this title, that has already travelled to Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, and Slovakia.

The Thick of the Forest is a literary dystopian novel that follows two women, Edla and Ingrid, along two different timelines on the background of a Finnish forest that is raging against human exploitation, and of an increasingly authoritarian state. As the two women’s stories intertwine in unexpected ways, the book explores the relationship between mankind and nature with a rich, enchanting language. For its themes and sharp eye on women’s rights in authoritarian states, and for its strong characters, The Thick of the Forest can be pitched as a twist on Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale set in the Finnish forest.

The Thick of the Forest is author Linnea Kuuluvainen’s debut, and was nominated for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize for the best debut of the year upon its release, and it is currently running for the Mirrormere Prize.  In Finland, it is published by Gummerus.

Septime is an Austrian publishing house with a carefully curated selection of domestic and international authors. They are the publishers of, among others, Jan Kjærstad, Pascal Garnier, Ryū Murakami, and Ute Cohen.

Warmest congratulations to the author and the publisher!