Each year, Suomen kuvalehti newspaper announces a list of most interesting books of the year. HLA is thrilled to see several of its titles on the list!
InUnder the Moon written by Aki-Pekka Sinikoski and illustrated by Ilja Karsikas, the mumhas flown to the moon and the dad has changed workplaces from circus to post. The little child is happy to stay at home alone, as he then can be whatever he likes to be. Sadness in this book is dealt with in an incredibly beautiful and comforting way, blending it with the zest for life and adventures. One day, while taking his bath, the child dives under water and discovers an island, where he meets new friends and learns new, exciting things. Sinikoski’s text is full of philosophical reflections, and Karsikas’s dreamy and warm watercolour illustrations brings the text to life through fantastical characters and landscapes.
Katie-Kate (2020)
Anu Kaaja’s Katie-Kate is an outrageously grotesque novel about the Cinderella stories that the media offers us as well as dull, empty marriages that are filled with ideas about royalties, celebrities and porn stars. Kaaja’s book is a critical analysis of our society and time where Disney princesses, royal brides and topless starlets have more in common than one might think.
Margarita (2020)
Finlandia Prize winner Margarita by Anni Kytömäki is a novel about a post-war country that is not unlike the one of today. The birth rate is low, and women are blamed and shamed for their personal choices. The increase of the economical welfare is at odds with protecting forests and environment in general. On top of all, deadly diseases are spreading, putting the people in danger and fear.
REC (2020)
Marisha Rasi-Koskinen’s novel REC is a story about a possessive, even dangerous relationship. Lucas and Cole like to take pictures. Cole tells about his twin brother Nik that is held in a family basement. After a while, it becomes unclear if Nik really exists. The second part of the book is a collection of pictures and films, that take the reader to ten different stories. The novel is so restless and mysterious that it feels not at all unlikely that the pages would have a totally different story written on them the second time you read it. REC makes the world a little more magical place to live in.
Wonderful news for Finland’s queen of crime Eva Frantz: Sekwa will start publishing her acclaimed Anna Glad series in Sweden!
Eva Frantz
foto: Marica Rosengård
The publisher has acquired the rights for the third book in the series, Out of the Game (2020). The books, focusing on the police investigator Anna Glad, has been a critical and commercial success, selling nearly 40,000 copies altogether and receiving much praise from the crime fans. Moreover, the second Anna Glad book, The Eighth Maiden (2018), was awarded as the best crime novel of the year in 2019 and nominated for the prestigious Glass Key Award.
Sekwa is a Swedish publishing house specialising in translated contemporary literature. Founded in 2005, it has a strong list of well-written, entertaining and captivating literature.
One of the major newspapers in Finland, Hufvudstadsbladet, has stated about The Blue Villa:
“Last year, Eva Frantz proved her significant talent as a cozy crime fiction author with her book Summer Isle. […] In The BlueVilla she has taken a further step in combining premeditated horrors with the aptly portrayed everyday life. […] She has limitless skill in describing petty crime – from just-about legal malice and revenge to browbeating your family with shitty behaviour.”
About The Eighth Maiden, the paper has stated:
“The crime plot is skillfully intertwined with a moral core. (…) Frantz is prompt and manages to capture something that is puzzling and frightening at the same time. (…) The Eighth Maiden explores the themes of abuse and sexual exploitation of young people, as well as the vicious culture of physical abuse that flourishes everywhere where there is money and power.”
Previously this year, World English rights for Frantz’s ghost and horror story for the middle grade readers, Raspberry Hill, were sold to Pushkin Press.
Congratulations to the author and the lucky crime fans in Sweden!
November is ending with one more exciting success: author Marisha Rasi-Koskinen was awarded Torch-Bearer Prize for her new novel REC!
Torch-Bearer Prize, otherwise called the Finnish Literary Export Award, is given every year to a title that is believed to have the most potential to succeed abroad. The award sum is 5000 euros.
As the jury and its chairman Kjell Westö stated about the book:
“The novel masterfully plays with various levels of time and place, the storytelling, as well as concepts of images and filming. The book is extraordinary in its abundance of internal stories that form the whole. The centre of it is a friendship that starts at a young age and involves many mysteries, addictions and traumas.“
REC is an atmospheric, post-modern dive into the fragmented reality we are living today. When teenager Lucas meets a peculiar boy named Cole, it is a start of a decades-long on-and-off friendship, where real and fictional characters are present simultaneously, where images and stories begin many times, in various places, and where dark, possessive and manipulating side of humans take over with irrevocable outcomes – unless… nothing is true. As the author herself describes the book, “it is a love letter to fiction”, where the reality is not unambiguous and the understanding of it is rather formed in people’s minds, stories and images.
Marisha Rasi-Koskinen has published six works of fiction. In 2019, her first YA book The Dark Side of the Sunwon the most prestigious literary prize of the year, Finlandia Junior.
HLA could not be more thrilled: both our nominees for the most important literary award of the year have won! Anni Kytömäki’s novel Margarita won Finlandia Prize for the best fiction book of the year and Anja Portin’s novel Radio Popov won Finlandia Junior, given to the best children’s and YA book.
Kytömäki’s novel Margarita portrays the destinies of forests and people in post-war Finland. It is a powerful, sensual and multilayered call to ponder the price that the building of a welfare state demands from an individual. This year’s chooser of the winner, conductor Hannu Lintu, has stated:
“The language and the storytelling of the book grip the readers and carry them away. It is not only a masterful portrayal of that ground zero point where the growth of the modern Finnish society has begun, but also of the struggle of an individual in the midst of unbelievable twists and turns that this growth brings upon. The book shows that every battle – let it be war or reconstruction – claims its victims. We know that these struggles for the better future are still present today.”
In her speech, Anni Kytömäki emphasised the critical state of our world:
“I have dedicated this book to the silent ones of water and earth – the ones that are in danger to be left behind in our society and in the face of [the global] ecological crisis. In my opinion, this Finlandia Prize shows that there is still room for diversity – that is, for the wide spectrum of characters and nature beings.“
The winner of Finlandia Junior Prize,Anja Portin’s novel Radio Popov is a book about loneliness, friendship and the power of storytelling. A warm adventure story brings to mind such children’s literature classics as Roald Dahl and Astrid Lindgren, but at the same time is also compelling for the adult readers.
The chooser of the prize, actor Christoffer Strandberg has written in his statement:
“I have always believed that a good book for children or young people is one that you can return to throughout your life, always finding new perspectives and realising that it has been at the heart of the matter all along. This is such a book. (…)
The book’s world – its time and place – fascinates me. It succeeds in being timeless while also being completely of our time. Radio Popov is a fantastical tale, but also a heart-rending story about humanity anchored in reality. The world and its people are not seen through a black-and-white filter. The parents of the forgotten children are not demonised. This is not a story about the struggle between good and evil. This is a story that focuses on the good in the small and in the large, in spite of all evil.”
In her speech, Anja Portin thanked the jury for the honour and talked, among other things, about the various colours of silence and the power of fiction in our everyday lives:
“Literature can give space to those, whose voice disappears among noises of the world. Especially important these days feels the ability of literature to evoke compassion and show the different colours of the world, not only the black and white.“
Foreign rights of Radio Popov have so far been sold to Denmark, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Finlandia Prize is the most important literary award in Finland, given annually in three categories: the best novel, the best children’s or YA book and the best nonfiction book of the year. The award sum is 30,000 euros.
Warm congratulations, Anni and Anja, their present and future readers and translators!
Previously, several other HLA’s authors have received the award in the category of the best novel, including Kari Hotakainen (The Trench Road, 2002) Pirkko Saisio (The Red Letter of Farewell, 2003) Mikko Rimminen (Red Nose Day, 2010) Ulla-Lena Lundberg (Ice, 2012) Riikka Pelo (Our Earthly Life, 2013) Jukka Viikilä (Watercolours from a Seaside City, 2016) and Juha Hurme (Headland, 2017)
Finlandia Junior Prize has been previously awarded to 4 HLA authors:
Tomi Kontio (In the Spring, Dad Got Wings, 2000) Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen (Light, Light, Light, 2011) Sanna Mander (The Lost Key, 2017) Marisha Rasi-Koskinen (The Dark Side of the Sun, 2019)
The longlist for one of the most prestigious literary awards in Finland, the Runeberg Prize, was announced, and we are excited to see our authors on it!
Additionally, 5 more titles on the longlist are published by HLA’s shareholders: Adult Peopleby Jan Forsström (Teos Publishers), Hunting Game by Ulrika Hansson (Schildts & Söderströms), Where to Goby Marko Järvikallas (Siltala), These Precious Things by Otto Lehtinen (Gummerus) and Shadow People by Jarkko Volanen (Teos Publishers).
Runeberg Prize is a prestigious literary prize named after the Finnish national poet, Johan Ludvig Runeberg. It is one of the most important literary awards 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. The shortlist will be announced on the 12th of December, and the winner on The Runeberg’s Day, the 5th of February2021.
