Author: Urpu Strellman

Ghosts and crime for middle-grade readers by crime author Eva Frantz snap the Runeberg Junior Prize for 2019!

“The novel was a bit frightening, the whole of me was shivering”, says one of the 186 children in the panel who chose the winner among  nine nominees.

Another ponders: “There were different feelings. It was sad in the beginning, then exciting.”

Runeberg Prize is a prestigeous literary prize named after the Finnish national poet, Johan Ludvig Runeberg. It is one of the most important literary prizes in Finland in addition to the Finlandia Prize. The prize, worth 10,000 euros, is given out in two categories: fiction and children’s books.

Raspberry Hill is crime author Eva Frantz’s first children’s novel. The suspenseful horror story is set in the early 20th century sanatorium where things don’t seem to be as they should…

Read more about the book here.

Praise for Raspberry Hill:

“Eva Frantz’s book has all the right elements that a page-turner for an avid young readership should have: a proper suspenseful plot and supernatural twists.”
– Hufvudstadsbladet newspaper

“A perfect autumn read for the courageous ones who are not afraid of ghosts or other mysterious characters.”
– Yle Internytt

“Frantz’s description of how the ordinary things distort and turn into something totally else in Stina’s imagination is credible. Raspberry Hill is not the only big building with intriguing spots where children end up having adventures. In addition to Hogwarts eg. the mysterious houses and castle ruins that the children in Enid Blyton’s novels explored come to mind. And thinking even more thematically, there is something from even Astrid Lindgren’s sick, orphan or generally lonely children who end up in breathtaking adventures. Thus, Frantz relies on classic ingredients but does it with a style and suspense that hold the reader tightly in their grip till the last pages.”
– Västra Nyland newspaper

Finnish Literature Exchange FILI supports foreign publishers interested in publishing Finnish literature (including Finland-Swedish and Sámi literature). The publishers can apply for 

– a grant for a reader’s report
– a translation grant
– a printing grant for children’s illustrated titles, comic books and graphic novels
– a promotional grant to cover the travel costs of the author when the book is published.

You can read more about FILI’s grants from their website: reader’s report grants, translation grants, printing grants, promotional grants, .

Translators can apply for sample translation grants.

FILI’s website is at www.finlit.fi/fili/en.

Henriikka Tavi’s novel Tellervo has been nominated for Runeberg Prize, often considered to be the second most important literary prize in Finland.

Tellervo  is a funny, cheeky and slightly awkward story about a woman called Tellervo. She has three university degrees – but she works in a kiosk. She has one friend, no partner, and her inner world is tumultuous – except that she is constantly feeling empty inside.

When Tellervo decides to follow the advice of a self-help love guide, things start to happen. The Runeberg Prize nominations board stated that “on the side of the mischievous smile the novel points out the excessive and sometimes even tragic demands that our culture seems to set for leading a happy life”.

Henriikka Tavi (b. 1978) is a poet who’s first poetry collection Eg. Esa  (2007) received the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize. It was followed by the collection Dictionary  (2010) and Hope  (2011), the latter of which won both the Kalevi Jäntti prize as well as the Dancing Bear Prize, awarded by Yleisradio. In 2012 Tavi published a poetry collection each month in the project by the poetry publisher Poesia, called 12 . Tellervo (2018) is her first novel. Read more about it here.

The Czech language rights of Selja Ahava’s novel Things that Fall from the Sky has been sold to Pavel Dobrovský – Beta in Prague. Czech is the 17th language area to which the rights of the title have been sold.

The English edition of the title, published by Oneworld Publications in the UK, will come out in April 2019.

Things that Fall from the Sky (2015) was awarded with European Union Prize for literature in 2016, and it was nominated for Finlandia Prize and the Torch-Bearer Prize in Finland.

Read more about the title here.

Things that Fall from the Sky is Selja Ahava’s second novel. Her first one, The Day the Whale Swam through London (2010) was a nominee for the Helsingin Sanomat Literary Prize and it won the Laura Hirvisaari Prize (the Booksellers Literary Prize). Ahava’s third novel, Before My Husband Disappears (2017) was one of the most talked-about books in Finland when it came out.

Selja Ahava is published in Finland by Gummerus.

The rights of Things that Fall from the Sky have been sold to the following areas:
Albania, IDK
Bulgaria, Colibri
Croatia, Vuković & Runjić
Czech, Pavel Dobrovský – Beta
Denmark, Jensen & Dalgaard
World English, Oneworld
Estonia, Post Factum (Eesti Meedia)
Germany, Mare Verlag
Hungary, Typotex
Latvia, Lauku Avize
Lithuania, Homo liber
Macedonia, Magor
Poland, Relacja
Serbia, Štrik
Slovenia, KUD Sodobnost International
Spanish, Editorial Bercimuel
Ukraine, V. Books XXi

 

Minna Rytisalo’s second novel Mrs. C rose straight to the top-ten bestselling list as it came out in September, first hitting #4 and then rising to #2 in October, the busiest month in Finnish publishing.

Mrs. C is a story of a strong and independent-minded woman who gets her way in an era when the place of a woman was merely attending to the household and the children (read more about the book here).

The novels themes got some extra attention at the Turku book fair in the beginning of October when the President of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, ended up demonstrating Finnish equality: he was sitting on the stairs  of the over-crowded hall listening to the discussion on equality between Rytisalo and the President’s wife, poet Jenni Haukio, and a couple of other panelists. 

Minna Rytisalo’s debut novel Lempi (2016) has gotten a tremendous amount of attention in Finland, selling over 25,000 copies and receiving numerous awards (read more here). The most recent publication of the novel was that of Hanser in Germany, where the book has gotten supreme visibility in the bookstores.