Author: Urpu Strellman

In Hurskainen’s third novel, a man of faith does an act of mercy and faces the consequences.

One of the six nominees for Finland’s biggest literary award, the Finlandia Prize, is Antti Hurskainen’s novel A Wooden Prayer. The novel tells about a verger, a man of faith, and a single father to a five-year-old girl. Unique in its profound and powerful ethos, the novel has been received in Finland with praising reviews.

Finlandia Prize jury stated :
“Faith, hope and love are elemental in Christian doctrine but seldom examined in contemporary literature. This novel is brave enough to not shy away from them and to question the workaday Lutheran attitude to faith. The novel is an exceptionally passionate story about the steadfast faith of a person that radiates into their everyday actions. Hurskainen’s language is as sharp as the main character’s thinking.”

Other reviews of the novel include, among others, the following characterizations:

“Intellectually stimulating novel glows with negativity. […] A Wooden Prayer is a harsh novel that has little regard for curling into an armchair.”
– Helsingin Sanomat newspaper

“Hurskainen has written a catechism for our time. […] Faith, hope, love, suffering and forgiveness are not just biblical concepts. They are themes that share a link with all human life, and the Bible might work as a useful tool in approaching them. If you can’t be bothered to crack open the Bible, you can at least read A Wooden Prayer.”
– Kulttuuritoimitus.fi literature magazine

We are most happy to welcome Antti Hurskainen to the Helsinki Literary Agency, with huge congratulations of the nomination!

Antti Hurskainen (b. 1986) has written four critically acclaimed collections of essays and three novels: 22—A Story About Eating (2019), Withering (2021), and A Wooden Prayer (2023). A Wooden Prayer, lauded by critics, has been nominated for the Torch-bearer Prize as well as Finlandia, the largest literature prize in Finland. His work often deals with literature, popular culture and religion.

Finlandia Prize is Finland’s biggest literary award, given out in three categories: fiction, children’s and young adult literature, and nonfiction. Each award is worth 30,000 euros. The winners will be announced on 30th November.

Iida Turpeinen’s debut Beasts of the Sea starred by the extinct, strange sea mammal, Steller’s sea cow, continues it journey to new areas.

Beasts of the Sea has written Finnish literary history on the international arena, as its rights were quickly sold to a dozen areas with aggressive pre-empts and in heated auctions. With its success, the novel is the internationally most widely sold Finnish language debut ever.

The latest foreign rights sales are to Slovenia, where the country’s biggest publishing house Mladinska acquired the rights. In Portugal, the rights were sold to Porto Editora, the publisher of authors such as José Saramago and Annie Ernaux and in Greece, to Ikaros, which publishes Odysseus Elytis, George Saunders and Marieke Lucas Rijneveld among others.

Currently, the rights have been sold to 14 areas, with offers on the table for two more (Catalan and Czech). The international publishers are:

World English, MacLehose and Little, Brown (pre-empted)
German, Fischer (pre-empted)
World French, Autrement (auction)
World Spanish, Seix Barral (pre-empted)
Italy, Neri Pozza (pre-empted)
Dutch, Singel (pre-empted)
Sweden, Albert Bonnier (pre-empted)
Norway, Gyldendal (pre-empted)
Denmark, People’s (pre-empted)
Estonia, Tänapäev
Greece, Ikaros 
Hungary, Polar
Portugal, Porto Editora
Slovenia, Mladinska.

Anni Kytömäki’s Margarita came third among the most loved winners of the prize.

Readers have voted Ulla-Lena Lundberg’s Ice (2012) to their favourite of all Finlandia Prize winners. There were all together 22,000 votes casted. The vote is the first of its kind: this year marks the 40th anniversary of the prize.

Ice is a story about a priest and his family who arrive to a small island community in Åland right after the war, in 1946. The novel paints a picture of the local people, their relationships and the surrounding nature with the strikes of a master storyteller, and it has been described one that leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

The novel is also the most bestselling Finlandia Prize winner with its well over 100,000 sold copies. The original Swedish edition is published by Schildts & Söderströms, and the Finnish translation by Teos.

Ulla-Lena Lundberg commented on the choice of the readers by saying,

“I am extremely happy for this recognition. At the same time I feel that all the Finlandia Prize winners would have been worthy of it: there are a lot of great books published in Finland, and putting them in order is difficult. I am very touched that the Finnish readers have taken a Finland Swedish novel to their hearts.”

The rights have been sold to the following areas:
Bulgaria, Izida
Croatia, Hena com
Denmark, Gyldendal
English, Sort of Books
Estonia, Eesti Raamat
Finland, Teos
Germany, Mare
Hungary, Széphalon Könyvmuhely
Norway, Heinesen
Poland, Marpress
Sweden, Albert Bonnier

Lundberg’s latest novel Light and Flame (2022) has been received with rave reviews.

The second of the readers’ favourites was Sofi Oksanen’s Purge (2008), and Anni Kytömäki’s Margarita (2020) took the third place.

The internationally most successful Finnish debut ever, Iida Turpeinen’s Beasts of the Sea, has been nominated for the prestigious Helsingin Sanomat Literary Prize.

The ten nominees for Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize were announced today, the last day of the Helsinki book fair. Among the candidates, there are six novels, three books of poetry and a collection of essays.

Antti Majander, a literary critic at the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper and a member of the jury, writes:

“Turpeinen whittles a base of clearly vast background information into precision strikes depicting her characters’ most telling moments. In addition to information, Beasts of the Sea offers the art of leaving out, which by and large informs the debut author’s voice.”

Beasts of the Sea has written Finnish literary history already now on the international arena, as its rights have been quickly sold to 12 areas, with aggressive pre-empts and in heated auctions. Currently, the rights have been sold to these areas:

World English, MacLehose and Little, Brown (pre-empted)
German, Fischer (pre-empted)
World French, Autrement (auction)
World Spanish, Seix Barral (pre-empted)
Italy, Neri Pozza (pre-empted)
Dutch, Singel (pre-empted)
Sweden, Albert Bonnier (pre-empted)
Norway, Gyldendal (pre-empted)
Denmark, People’s (pre-empted)
Estonia, Tänapäev
Greece, Ikaros 
Hungary, Polar.

The novel is a science-fueled story of extinctions with a huge marine mammal, Steller’s sea cow, as its protagonist. With her short, concise sentence and the skills of a great storyteller, Turpeinen has created a page-turning literary work is that is hugely topical despite the fact that the events of the novel take place in 18th, 19th and 20th century.

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

Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize has been given to the best Finnish debut yearly since 1995. Before, between 1964 and 1994, the best debut award was named after J. H. Erkko, a 19th century Finnish poet and the brother to the founder and editor in chief of Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, the biggest daily in Finland.

The best Finnish debut of 2023 will be announced on the 16th of November.

Autrement came out as the winner from the auction for the French world rights of Beasts of the Sea.

During the past few weeks, Iida Turpeinen’s “world-class debut” Beasts of the Sea has been the book everyone is talking about. The sea cow hype has manifested in seven pre-emptive deals (world English, MacLehose and Little, Brown jointly; Germany, S. Fischer; Spanish, Seix Barral; the Netherlands, Singel; Sweden, Albert Bonnier; Norway, Gyldendal; Denmark, People’s). Before, the rights have been sold to Estonian Tänapäev and Hungarian Polar.

Today, Autrement (of the publishing group Flammarion) came out as the winner in the auction for the world French rights.

Juliette Lambron, the literary director of Autrement, wrote in her letter to the author:

“From the very first pages of your novel, I have been swept away by Elolliset and its captivating epic novel dimension: reading your novel is like embarking on an adventure, a fascinating journey through time and places. […]  The epic scope is perfectly interwoven with scientific observations and details that nourish the narrative: your novel achieves the feat of combining an adventure dimension with the history of sciences, of discoveries and explorations in a very compulsive way. […] I am very impressed and passionate about your deftly mastered novel and its precise, rhythmic and evocative writing that enlightens our human nature and our relationship to our environment, to nature and to the living beings.”

The deal was done by our splendid co-agent Anna Lindblom from the Nordik Agency.

Autrement’s beautiful publishing list includes authors such as Joseph Conrad, Jens Liljestrand, Julia Phillips or Kjell Westö. It is also well-known for its “Atlases” collection that endeavors to chart territories in new and enlightening ways, so as to broaden our horizons and our knowledge of the world.