Author: Chiara

Liv!, the latest novel by Helmi Kekkonen, is nominated for this year’s Finlandia Prize.

Amazing news for our author Helmi Kekkonen: Liv! has been nominated for the Finlandia Prize.

Liv! is the latest novel by Kekkonen, one of Finland’s strongest contemporary voices. In Liv! readers follow Liv, a 22-year-old woman on holiday with her family in the archipelago as she agrees to meet up with a stranger who approached her on the beach. What awaits seems inevitable, even though it shouldn’t. The women on the island all want the best for Liv, but each seems to have a different opinion of what that is, and they enter a collision course. The result is a touching, incisive narration and reflection on the definition of sexual violence, and the victim’s responsibility, that poses a poignant question: what would you do in this situation?

The jury have motivated their choice as follows:

“The work is a carefully composed, defined, and skillfully constructed account built from contrast about an important subject: sexual violence and its impact on everyone affected. It encourages the reader to look into the ingrained gendered boundaries of our culture as well as one’s own position in relation to them. The work also portrays in detail the subtle dynamics of family relationships, where what is left unsaid is more important than what is actually said.”

Helmi Kekkonen‘s previous works include This Woman’s Life, The Guests, and Topsy-Turvy Anna. In Finland, Liv! is published by Siltala.

The winner will be announced on November 27th.

Warmest congratulations to the author, and fingers crossed!

Eva Frantz is travelling to Norway, where she will be attending the Silkfestivalen in Skudeneshavn.

SILK (Skudeneshavn Internasjonale Litteratur- og Kulturfestival, the International Literature and Culture Festival in Skudeneshavn) is a literature and cultural festival with the goal of fostering reading and spreading cultural experiences. Every year a selected group of authors, screenwriters, musicians and artists is invited to the festival to discuss their work.

Eva Frantz is one of Finland’s most prominent Swedish-speaking authors and her production spans from crime fiction to children’s literature. Her Anna Glad detective series, which follows 30-something detective Anna Glad, has been a success with over 100.000 copies sold and has peaked this summer with Then Die Contentedly. The series has already travelled to Estonia, Denmark, Germany and Norway (books #1-3)

Her children’s novels for middle-grade readers, The Mystery of Raspberry Hill, The Secret of Helmersbruk Manor, and The Queen of the Night, have been great domestic and international successes. The Mystery of Raspberry Hill has been adapted into a miniseries, Hallonbacken, and The Secret of Helmersbruk Manor has already travelled to five territories.

If you’re based in Norway don’t miss out on this event, and stay tuned for updates!

October, the month of book fairs and long, hectic workdays is coming to an end, which can only mean one thing: it’s Halloween, the spookiest holiday of the year!

This is an excellent time to dive into some good literature where the fantastical, the mythical, the absurd, and the spooky creep in. If you’ve already read all our backlist and are familiar with our literary horror titles, our middle-grade mystery and horror books, then you’re in luck because this Halloween readers can enjoy an unprecedented English translation of one of internationally best-selling author Juhani Karila‘s short stories from his collection The Death of the Apple Crocodile.

The short story is called Game Land, and it is available in an English translation by Lola Rogers on World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture.

Shakespeare famously said in Romeo and Juliet that “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet” but in Game Land not calling Her Highness the Lovely Princess Rose with her correct title sets in motion a series of absurd and fantastical events in a Finnish school, which is turned overnight into a luxury casino, Game Land.

You can read the full story here.

And you can find more about Juhani Karila and his authorship here.

Congratulations to the author and thank you to World Literature Today for the feature!

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!