Author: Chiara

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!

The Bee Pavillion by Leena Krohn is travelling to Hungary, where it will be published by Polar.

Leena Krohn‘s production continues to enchant readers and publishers everywhere: The Bee Pavillion is now travelling to Hungary, where it will be published by Polar.

The Bee Pavillion is a building of stories: it is the former support center for the psychically ill, and one of the few old buildings left in the city. It is also the headquarter of a number of peculiar associations, including the Fluctuating Reality Club. The members of the club transform reality on the daily, and the smallest things can trigger shifts and changes. In Finland, it is published by Teos.

Leena Krohn is one of Finland’s most prolific and established voices. Her production explores the unusual, the absurd, and reflects on the line dividing ordinary from weird, and sane from insane.

Polar is a Hungarian publishing house specialising in literature from the Nordics. Their list includes some of Finland’s most prominent contemporary authors, and is the home of among others Beasts of the Sea by Iida Turpeinen, A Wooden Prayer by Antti Hurskainen, and 101 Ways to Kill Your Husband by Laura Lindstedt & Sinikka Vuola.

Congratulations to the author and the publishers!

Liv! by Helmi Kekkonen is travelling to Hungary, where it will be published by Polar. The book is one of this year’s nominees for the Finlandia Prize.

Helmi Kekkonen‘s newest novel Liv! is starting its journey out into the world, and is now travelling to Hungary, where it will be published by Polar. Liv! is one of this year’s nominees for the Finlandia Prize, the largest and most prestigious literary award in Finland, and has been welcomed with warm praise by both readers and critics.

In Liv! we follow 22-year-old Liv, who is on holiday on an island in the Finnish archipelago with her family. One day she is approached by a man while she is sunbathing on the cliffs, and he is a little too friendly, sits a little too close. Nevertheless, Liv is intrigued, and agrees to meet him again without telling her family. What awaits Liv at their meeting seems obvious to the reader, even though it shouldn’t be. Slowly, Liv opens up about being assaulted, and all the women in her family enter a collision course: they all want what’s best for Liv, but each of them has a different opinion as to what that is. Liv! is a choral reflection around a harsh, but necessary question: what would you do if it happened to you?

Helmi Kekkonen is one of the strongest contemporary voices in Finland. Her previous production includes This Woman’s Life, The Guests, and Topsy-Turvy Anna. In Finland her work is published by Siltala.

Polar is a Hungarian publishing house with a strong focus on high-quality literature from the Nordics. They are the Hungarian home of, among others, Pearl by Kari Hotakainen, 101 Ways to Kill Your Husband by Laura Lindstedt & Sinikka Vuola, Beasts of the Sea by Iida Turpeinen, and A Wooden Prayer by Antti Hurskainen.

Warm congratulations to the author and the publishers!

Marsilio has pre-empted the Italian rights to Mirabilis by Anni Kytömäki, marking the 3rd foreign deal for this title.

Mirabilis by Anni Kytömäki continues its wonderful success: Marsilio has pre-empted the Italian rights, marking the 3rd foreign deal for this title.

Francesca Varotto, editor in chief of foreign fiction at Marsilio, has commented:

“We feel that with her epic story Anni Kytömäki will fit perfectly in our list, along with authors like Nino Haratischwili and Adam Johnson […]. We love big stories, the ones with many threads to follow, the ones that sweep you away.”

Mirabilis became a sensation in Finland immediately upon its release: it sold 5.000 copies in two weeks, and collected glowing reviews on Finnish media. It was in the spotlight at the Frankfurt Fair, where it was pre-empted in Sweden by Norstedts and in Denmark by People’s.

Mirabilis is a great novel of journeys and adventure following two generations of outcast women, both of whom share a deep bond with nature. The narration starts out at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, and carries the reader all the way to the 1930s in a journey that stretches from Finland to the Amur, and still further on. Riikka is a young woman of unusual strength, who makes the brave decision of leaving for the Amur on a colonial expedition, and becomes fascinated with a tiger in a way that will mark her forever. Along the way she gives birth to a set of twins, one of whom is a girl, Ella. Unconventional like her mother, and determined to live life on her own terms, Ella becomes an acrobat and brushes with death one too many times. As a result, Ella develops a strong connection to a recently extinct bird, and a strong interest in the scientific discourse around extinction. These ingredients, along with unanswered questions from the past, result in a epic narrative that draws readers in, and that one never wishes to leave. In Finland, Mirabilis is published by Gummerus.

Anni Kytömäki is one of Finland’s strongest and most-loved contemporary voices. She won the Finlandia Prize in 2020 with Margarita, which sold about 90.000 copies in Finland alone.

Marsilio is a beautiful publishing house based in Venice. They are the Italian home of, among others, bestselling Nordic authors like Stieg Larsson, Åsa Larsson,  John Ajvide Lindqvist, Ann-Helén Laestadius and Maja Lunde. Their list also includes Nobel-prize winner and Pulitzer-prize winner authors, like Adam Johnson and Herta Mueller, and world-bestselling authors like Michael Christie, Kate Atkinson, and Madeline Miller. We’re delighted to see Anni Kytömäki in such great company.

Warmest congratulations to the author and the publisher!

Pirkko Saisio, the grand dame of the Finnish literary and dramatic scene, is continuing to wow the international audience: NZZ am Sonntag is featuring The Lowest Common Multiple (Helsinki Trilogy #1), in German translation by Elina Kritzokat, in its 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list.

NZZ am Sonntag (NZZaS) is a Sunday newspaper that has been published in Zurich since March 2002 and is published by Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Switzerland’s most prominent newspaper.

The review praises the book and the trilogy as follows:

“The trilogy changes perspectives as easily
as it switches between decades. These three books are family history and contemporary political history, sexual self-discovery and artist biography. […] Saisio tells in vivid scenes, in key moments, dreams and reflections, which, often without a point in between, associatively glide into one another, realistic and fantastic, full of reality, self-confident, touching and clever, funny and beautiful.”

The Helsinki Trilogy consists of The Lowest Common Multiple, The Backlight, and The Red Book of Farewells. Pirkko Saisio’s autofictional trilogy carries the reader through the childhood, adolescence and adulthood of a girl who wanted to be a boy and started calling herself “her”, becoming both narrator and protagonist of the story of her life, when she was eight years of age.

The trilogy, a modern classic in Finland, awarded with two Finlandia nominations and one Finlandia Prize win, made Saisio the first living Finnish author to be included in the Penguin Modern Classics.

The trilogy starts with The Lowest Common Multiple (1998). In the beginning of the novel, the main character, “she”, is already a middle-aged mother. When her father dies, things get shoved out of their place. Her memories take her back to her childhood in the 1950s – to a story, which is also about to change.

In the second novel, The Backlight (2000), it is 1968, and the main character is travelling to Switzerland to work in an orphanage. With episodes from her grammar school years, the reader follows her navigating the conflict between a leftist upbringing, Christianity, and her awakening sexuality.

The Red Book of Farewells (2003) starts in the politically turbulent 1970s. The main character begins her studies in the Theatre Academy, falls in love with a woman, and enters an adult life where there are to be farewells every now and then.

The strong themes of the trilogy – the relationship between an individual and the society, sexuality and being queer, and finding your voice – are told in a fragmentary, lyrical style, descriptive of Saisio. As the background, there is Helsinki, changing as the decades go by.

The trilogy is out in German with Klett-Cotta, in French with Robert Laffont, De Geus in Dutch, and will a top title on its release with Host in Czech.

Pirkko Saisio has released a new novel this autumn, Suliko, which is a deep, lyrical dive in the mind of a dictator approaching death. In Finland, it is published by Siltala.

Warm thanks to NZZ for the feature, and congratulations to the author!