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The national newspaper Helsingin Sanomat has recently published two lists of the 100 Best Books from Finland. One of the lists consists in the Critics’ Selection of 100 Best Books, as picked by critics and literary professionals, while the other included the Readers’ Selection of 100 Best Books as picked by readers.

As you may have already read, the The Critics’ Selection list crowned The Red Book of Farewells by Pirkko Saisio as the best and most important Finnish book of the millennium, and readers are convinced, too, as the title is in their top 30 (#28), but both critics and readers have selected plenty of other familiar names and faces.

The international bestseller Beasts of the Sea by Iida Turpeinen is topping the Readers’ Selection list, and is ranked #16 in the Critics’ Selection list. Readers have chosen it as their #1 and called it a “crazily stunning story and at the same time a so touchingly serious reminder of what mankind does to the rest of the natural world without thinking of the consequences at all.”

Ice by Ulla-Lena Lundberg is another top favourite for both readers and critics: the book is ranked #2 in the Readers’ Selection, and #6 in the Critics’ Selection. It comes as no surprise, as Ice was already chosen as readers’ all-time favourite Finlandia winner last year. Ice is the story of a young pastor and his family in a remote community, and it has been described as touching, quietly epic, and entertaining.

Coming in strong at #4 in the Readers’ Selection and #14 in the Critics’ is Fishing For the Little Pike by Juhani Karila. Publisher Nora Varjama, who reviewed for the Critics’ Selection, has stated that the book is “a little Finnish folly. You can only find it in literature. An insane gem, and even more insane is the fact that Finns have taken this on as their own.” A crowd favourite, the book is also an international hit, and has already travelled to 20 language territories.

In the Reader’s Selection’s top 10 we also find Margarita by Anni Kytömäki (#7), another bestselling Finlandia-winning title, ranked at #75 in the Critics’ list. Kytömäki’s production in its entirety is shown a lot of love: Goldheart is in the top 20 of the Readers’ Selection, Mirabilis in the top 50, and Stone Weaver is ranked at #81. Critics too, include several of Kytömäki’s books in the list: they rank Goldheart even higher than Margarita, at #55.

Destruction by Iida Rauma is high up on both lists: readers place in their top 20 at #15, and critics in their top 10 at #7. Destruction, a story of school violence and historical, personal and natural destruction, was a literary sensation and won the Finlandia in 2020. It has already travelled to four language territories and the Swedish edition, out with Ramus, took Sweden by storm.

Pirkko Saisio is featured with two titles in both lists. On top of her The Red Book of Farewells, both lists rank Passion among their favourites. Passion is ranked at #5 in the Readers’ Selection, and #21 in the Critics’ Selection.

Trench Road by Kari Hotakainen is also featured in both lists: readers place it at #30, and critics at #58. The novel tells a story of one Matti Virtanen, whose life is changed by a single strike, after which his wife and daughter leave him. Losing his family breaks the spine of Matti’s existence. He feels he needs to gain his family back, and starts fulfilling his wife’s dream of a house. His obsession drives him to excesses, and soon there is no turning back. Trench Road was awarded the most prestigious literary award in the country, Finlandia Prize, as well as the Nordic Council Literature Prize.

The other HLA titles on the Readers’ Selection of 100 Best Books are:

#7 Anneli Kanto: The Rat Saint
#25 Juha Hurme: Headland
#27 Riikka Pelo: Our Earthly Life
#49 Pauliina Rauhala: Heavensong
#65 Merja Mäki: Before the Birds
#69 Kari Hotakainen: The Human Part

The other HLA titles on the Critics’ Selection of 100 Best Books are:

#10 Mikko Rimminen: Park Life
#20 Katriina Huttunen: The Placenta of Grief
#27 Marisha Rasi-Koskinen: REC
#41 Marjo Niemi: The Mother of All Losses
#44 Harry Salmenniemi: Texas, Scissors
#48 Harry Salmenniemi: Dolphin Meditation
#49 E.L. Karhu: To My Brother
#53 Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen: Light Light Light
#59. Selja Ahava: The Woman Who Loved Insects
#60 Pirkko Saisio: The Backlight
#66 Anu Kaaja: Katie-Kate
#69 Ellen Strömberg: We’ll Just Ride Past
#77 Leena Krohn: Hotel Sapiens
#78 Anu Kaaja: Metamorphoslip
#95 Niillas Holmberg: Halla Helle
#96 Matias Riikonen: Matara

Congratulations to our authors, and don’t miss out on these titles!

We’ll Just Ride Past by Ellen Strömberg has been shortlisted for the Mare di Libri Prize in Italy, where it is published by Terre di Mezzo.

We’ll Just Ride Past by Ellen Strömberg has been shortlisted for the Mare di Libri Prize in the category Fiction in Italy. The Italian edition of the book is published by Terre di Mezzo in translation by Samanta Milton Knowles.

For the Mare di Libri Prize a jury of experts picks a shortlist, and the winner is selected by readers aged 14-16 across Italy. Mare di Libri (literally “sea of books”) is also a literary festival for young readers, taking place in Rimini every June.

We’ll Just Ride Past follows Manda and Malin, a duo of best friends in ninth grade. They are nicknamed The Bicycles as they cycle everywhere looking for fun and something to do in a small town where nothing ever happens. One day Malin develops a crush on a guy working at the local pizzeria, and a series on events – both fun and not so fun – begins to unfold. We’ll Just Ride Past is an accurate portrayal of a moment in life where it’s perfectly normal to change style and music taste every week and the world awaits.

We’ll Just Ride Past won the August Prize, the most prestigious literary prize in Sweden, in 2022 and its rights has already been sold for Italian, Korean, Slovenian, Polish, and Catalan.

Ellen Strömberg is a Swedish-speaking Finnish author whose production ranges from picture books to novels. We’ll Just Ride Past was a domestic and international success and her latest YA novel No Beginning No End has been received with warm praise. It is the story of Benjamin, a shy teenage boy dealing with his mother’s death, as he grows close with Tristan, a mysterious boy.

Congratulations to the author and the publisher, and fingers crossed!

Radio Popov by Anja Portin continues to establish itself as a wonderful international success. The Slovenian edition of the book by Sodobnost, in Slovenian translation by Julija Potrč Šavli, has been welcomed warmly and put in the spotlight last autumn.

In a tour in Slovenia author Anja Portin discussed the book and its themes with young readers and teachers, toured different literary events, and attended the Ljubljana Book Fair.

Radio Popov is one of the most successful children’s books of the last years: it won the Finlandia Junior upon its release, and has already travelled to 25 language territories. Radio Popov follows Alfred, a nine-year-old boy who lives virtually alone. His mother is not in the picture and his father is constantly busy with work and business trips. During one of these business trips Alfred is left alone for so long he runs out of food, and electricity is cut off. When everything seems lost, Alfred is saved by a mysterious stranger who delivers food and woollen socks in lonely children’s letterboxes. It is the beginning of a wonderful adventure that will lead Alfred to a new family, and to saving more forgotten children. Alfred’s story is moving, and touches on social issues, but also contains joy, friendship, and a happy ending. The story, where children are left to their own devices with their problems in the face of absent or unhelpful adults is reminiscent of literary classics like the works of Astrid Lindgren and Roald Dahl.

Anja Portin is also the author of The Book of Misty Trees, where fantasy, and environmentalism are mixed in a wonderful adventure.

Things That Fall From The Sky by Selja Ahava is travelling to Italy, where it will be published by Barta.

Things That Fall From The Sky by Selja Ahava continues its journey out into the world and is now travelling to Italy, where it will be published by Barta. This is the 28th language territory for this title, already winner of the European Union Prize for Literature in 2015, and longlisted for various prestigious awards, including the Warwick Prize and the DUBLIN Award.

Things That Fall From The Sky tells the story of a combination of extremely unlikely events: it follows a little girl whose mother is killed by a block of ice falling from the sky, her aunt who wins the lottery twice and then falls into a weeks-long sleep, and a man who has been struck by lightning five times. Things That Fall From The Sky is a literary, touching, unconventional fairytale about how life demands to be lived, no matter what absurd events may befall people.

Selja Ahava is an acclaimed Finnish author, dramaturge, and scriptwriter. All her novels have been received with glowing reviews and award nominations and wins. Her works are published in Finland by Gummerus.

Barta is a beautiful Tuscany-based publishing house whose list includes a selection of fiction, non-fiction, children’s books and comics. They pride in publishing the books that they’d like to read themselves, and curate their selections with attention and creativity.

Congratulations to the publisher and the author!

Pirkko Saisio’s The Red Book of Farewells has been crowned by the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper as the most important Finnish book of the millennium.

The Red Book of Farewells by Pirkko Saisio, the third and last volume of the wildly successful Helsinki Trilogy, has been crowned by the Helsingin Sanomat national newspaper as the most important Finnish book of the millennium.

Helsingin Sanomat, the largest national newspaper in Finland, has compiled a list of the best 100 Finnish books of the millennium selected by literary critics and book industry professionals, and The Red Book of Farewells is topping the list. The choice is motivated as follows:

Eleonoora Riihinen, literary critic: “[The Red Book of Farewells] is a work that was ahead of its time in many ways, and it has become a modern classic. It documents a moment of the political movement in Helsinki in the 70s in the student community and the lesbian culture of the time. The emotions of falling in love and breaking up are loaded into a fragmentary and apparently light-hearted text in a touching way, but amazingly also in a way that is at the same time casual but elevated. “

Finnish Book Foundation Board Chair Mari Koli: “Pirkko Saisio’s Helsinki trilogy third and last part is a dazzling novel that transcends the autobiographical boundaries whose wistful snapshot of Helsinki in the 1970s and 1980s you’ll be happy to carry with you for a long time. And what about Saisio’s staggering theatrical sense! She builds immaculate dialogues into the middle of memory fragments, smaller plays infiltrated into the story that will stun even the most experienced reader. I can’t help but be moved and say thank you, Saisio, for existing and for writing”.

Pirkko Saisio’s production is in a league of its own in the Finnish literary scene: the Helsinki Trilogy received three Finlandia Prize nomination and one win, and it has been a wild success internationally. In the German-speaking world The Lowest Common Multiple, in German translation by Elina Kritzokat and edition by Klett Cotta, has been ranked in the Best 100 Books of the 21st century on NZZ am Sonntag newspaper, and it has received splendid reviews in the French- and Dutch-speaking world where it’s out with Robert Laffont and De Geus, and in Czech Republic, where it’s out with Host. The Helsinki trilogy also made Saisio the first contemporary Finnish author to be included in the Penguin Modern Classics.

Pirkko Saisio has released a new novel this autumn, Suliko, which is a deep, lyrical dive in the mind of a dictator approaching death. In Finland, it is published by Siltala and is currently nominated for the Runeberg Prize.

Warm thanks to Helsingin Sanomat, and warmest congratulations to the author!