Author: Anastasia

Towards the summer, some lovely children’s books deals! Two new deals are now confirmed for Malin Klingenberg’s most recent picture book, Skeleton (2023), illustrated by Maria Sann: De Vier Windstreken acquired world Dutch rights, while Korean Studies Information (KSI) will be publishing it in South Korea.

De Vier Windstreken is a beautiful children’s literature publisher based in The Netherlands. Their main focus is on picture books for various age groups.

KSI, on its part, focuses on publishing children’s picture books that promote self-searching, independence, family love, environment, and diversity, among other themes.

Skeleton is a tenderly told story about a child overcoming his fears while learning what each of us is made of. When little Teo, who is afraid to death of skeletons, learns he has one inside of him too, he gets worried: Is there a skeleton inside everyone? Sometimes parts of us break and need to be fixed with a cast.

“An expert at telling humorous stories, Klingenberg has toned done the funny business and written a book that is inventive, multilayered, and in complete solidarity with its child protagonist. […] Klingenberg has partnered here with one of Finland’s sharpest illustrators, Maria Sann. If this were a ballroom dance competition, they’d be standing on the podium’s top spot. Sann succeeds in enriching the text with unexpected illustrative strategies and angles that reveal a child’s perspective. […] Read Skeleton, and you’ll see how Klingenberg and Sann’s polished pearl of a picture book grows with every read into a brilliant bullseye that literally and figuratively gets under the skin of the protagonist and reader alike.”
– Hufvudstadsbladet newspaper

Congratulations to the authors!

 A fantastic week for our modern classic, the Helsinki Trilogy, and its legendary author Pirkko Saisio: Romanian publisher Pandora M, an imprint of Editura Trei, becomes the 7th publisher to acquire the rights for the trilogy.

Established in 1995, Pandora M publishes classic and contemporary literature as well as literary essay in three collections: Anansi World Fiction; Literati; and PanDa. Saisio will be published along such world-renowned literary names as Annie Ernaux, Olga Ravn, Georghi Gospodinov, Manuel Vilas, Maggie O’Farrell and many others.

Saisio is, without a doubt, quickly becoming an international phenomenon, no lesser than the Danish Tove Ditlevsen a few years ago. The American publisher Two Lines Press has just launched the third part of the Helsinki trilogy, The Red Book of Farewells (2003), translated by Mia Spangenberg, and will later continue with the two remaining titles: The Lowest Common Multiple (1988) and The Backlight (2000).

The German publisher Klett-Cotta, who pre-empted the entire trilogy in the autumn 2021, will also be starting with the third book, which will be published this upcoming autumn as their lead title. On this occasion, a group of prominent journalists from various German publications and media channels such as Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Tagesspiegel, Welt and others are visiting Helsinki this week to meet Saisio and tour the important places of her childhood and youth.

In the Netherlands, where the trilogy was pre-empted by De Geus, the first part will also be released as the publisher’s lead title, this June. In France, the trilogy was pre-empted by Robert Laffont and the publication is planned for 2024. In Hungary, the trilogy is published by Polar.

In Finland, Siltala will be publishing a new edition of the trilogy this autumn, with entirely new covers.

Saisio’s Autofictional trilogy is one of the masterpieces of Finnish literature. Each novel was nominated for Finland’s biggest literary award, the Finlandia Prize, the last one finally taking the prize. The latest nomination for Saisio, who has during her long career received numerous literary awards, came for her bestselling novel Passion – a color-saturated, Tarkovskian chronicle of Europe. Passion was recently sold to the Czech publisher Host, who also acquired the entire Helsinki trilogy.

To learn more about Saisio’s work, you can check out our Author in Focus newsletter.

Wonderful news from the Netherlands! The offer for historical romance trilogy, Cotton Mill, written by Ann-Christin Antell, is currently on the table.

The trilogy could be described as Bridgerton meets L. M. Montgomery – an entertaining page-turner appropriate for a wide reader base. The top-quality historical romance with feminist undertones is enhanced with a witty female lead, a strong focus on manners and class distinction, as well as reflections on national awakening and rising social and political unrest. The trilogy has already sold over 114,000 copies in all formats. The third book, published in February 2023, rose to the top ten bestseller list on its first 5 days. 

Check out our Literature from Finland podcast episode TIMES where the author discusses the success of her historical fiction.

To celebrate the 50^th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and Finland, Finland has been invited as a guest of honor to the Nami Island International Children’s Book Festival. With support from FILI, Helsinki Literary Agency, along with other literary agents and illustrators from Finland, had the opportunity to spend a week in Korea during the days of the festival.

For years Korea has been considered a difficult market for translated titles, but our May trip has proved this wrong. Our agents Urpu Strellman and Viivi Arela had meetings with nearly 20 publishers and received a significant number of offers for various titles from our catalogue – Gorilla by Miika Pörsti & Anne Vasko; Night Express by Karin Erlandsson & Peter Bergting; Penelope and the Big Baby Tooth Ballyhoo by Saara Kekäläinen and Reetta Niemensivu; The Unicorn by Ilja Karsikas; Under the Moon by Aki-Pekka Sinikoski and Ilja Karsikas, among others.

This would not have been possible without AMO agency, which became our exclusive co-agent in Korea last month. AMO Agency introduces foreign language books to Korean publishers and more than 5000 foreign books have been licensed and published via the agency since 2007. Currently 6 agents (and 3 children) share happy daily lives, work and chats every day.  According to AMO, people in Korea have great interest in Nordic design, for example, but the interest in literature from Finland yet has a lot of space and opportunities to grow . And the agency hopes they can contribute to introducing Finnish culture and literature more widely in Korea. 

Some of the meetings were held in Paju book city, which is located about an hour’s drive from Seoul. Paju is an amazing city of its own entirely devoted to the creation, publication and sales of Korean books. The place shows that the book industry in Korea is a respected area of business.

On Wednesday, our agents along with Korean publishers and illustrators were invited to the Residence of Finnish Ambassador in Seoul, where they could meet in a less formal setting.

We thank all our partners for their fantastic work and are excited to see what is waiting for us in the future.

Fantastic news from Israel: publisher Keren has just acquired the Hebrew rights for two titles on HLA’s list, an illustrated children’s novel A Giraffe’s Heart Is Unbelievably Large, by Sofia & Amanda Chanfreaus, and the legendary novel Tainaron, by Leena Krohn.

Keren focuses on quality literature, both contemporary works, as well as best modern classics from all around the world.

For A Giraffe’s Heart, the Hebrew deal is already 13th foreign right sale.  This illustrated novel for the middle-grade readers was the winner of the most prestigious literary award in Finland for children’s & young people’s literature, Finlandia Junior Prize, last year. The title is now also nominated for the Nordic Council Children’s and Young People’s Literature Prize. The book has already sold over 10,000 copies in Finland.

Tainaron, first published in 1985, was a breakthrough work for Leena Krohn, and remains one of the most recognized titles in her immense body of work. The book earned her nominations of the World Fantasy Award and International Horror Guild Award. 

The inhabitants of Tainaron are insect-like, but their experiences and actions seem strangely familiar. We read about them in letters whose recipient remains nameless. Unprecedented metamorphoses are witnessed, strange coincidences are enjoyed and the possibilities of existence pondered. The descriptions are often accurate depictions of the ways of life of particular species, but at the same time, allegories to our own, familiar everyday world.

Considered to be a modern literary classic, Tainaron has been translated to 12 languages.

Congratulations to the authors for the deals!