News

The Book of Misty Trees by Anja Portin, author of international best-selling title Radio Popov, has been awarded the LukuVarkaus Prize.

Anja Portin‘s latest work, The Book of Misty Trees, has been awarded the LukuVarkaus Prize during the Vekara-Varkaus festival week, dedicated to children’s literature.

The final decision on the winner of the prize was made by a jury of seven children, who chose The Book of Misty Trees motivating their choice by praising the book for being thrilling and captivating, adding that its central themes, friendship and protecting nature, are important in the lives of children and that the fantasy world of the book is both adventurous and enriching, and they learned more about nature while reading.

The LukuVarkaus Prize was established in 2001, and is awarded on a yearly basis to a children’s book.

The Book of Misty Trees is an adventurous story set in a fantasy world where we follow Magda Murkbird, who loses her mother and her house in a landslide. Luckily, she is not all alone but has Chestnut – the best dog on earth. In fact, it is thanks to Chestnut that Magda has survived unscathed. The two set off on a journey to look for Magda’s aunt she has never met, and on the way they get lost in a mysterious thick fog covering the peak of the Misty Mountain. Thus begins an unforgettable adventure in a world governed by Misty Trees, above all the eldest of them, the fountain of all living, the enormous Everbark. 

A classic fantasy adventure with an environmentally conscious twist, The Book of Misty Trees has been received with praising reviews and accolades, and it has so far traveled to Denmark, Estonia and Poland.

In Finland, the book is published by S&S.

Congratulations to the author and the publishers!

The Helsinki Literary Agency is happy to share some exciting news for our team members.

Urpu Strellman, who has been working in Helsinki Literary Agency (HLA) since its founding in 2017, first as CEO and from 2023 as agent-at-large, will move on to run the publishing house Art House she has today acquired.

Urtė Liepuoniūtė returns to Helsinki Literary Agency in August in the new role of senior literary agent. Liepuoniūtė previously worked in the agency from 2019 to 2023, after which she focused on her career as an award-winning literary translator from Finnish to Lithuanian.

“I am delighted to return to HLA, to the work and industry that I love. In my new position, I’m looking forward to combining my two passions: strengthening the export of Finnish literature and visualizing the various ways the future can be implemented in publishing and agenting. HLA’s list is as stellar as ever, and I am eager to get to work with our great network of publishers and wonderful team,” Liepuoniūtė says.

“We are very grateful to Urpu for all the work she has done for the agency and Finnish literary export. HLA is now in an interesting stage of growth, and Urtė will both bring continuity and further strengthen our vision. We warmly welcome her back,” CEO Viivi Arela says.

Touko Siltala, co-founder of Siltala Publishing and chair of the HLA board, notes: “Urpu Strellman’s energy, strong commitment and professionalism have made HLA a key Finnish agency in the past 7 years. We thank her for her great work and wish good luck and success to the courageous publisher. It is a great source of joy and excitement to have Urtė Liepuoniūtė continue HLA’s strong work in the field of Finnish literary export.”

“The seven and half years I have spent at HLA have been an exciting and inspiring time, during which we have built an ambitious, wide, and internationally appealing list of Finnish literature. Successes seem to have become regular, but there is still the same feeling of excitement and moving forward in the agency. Our authors will be in the safe hands of my brilliant colleagues,” says Strellman.

Alongside Arela and Liepuoniūtė, Chiara Stanziani continues her work as a literary agent and Anastasia Basova as a literary assistant.

Helsinki Literary Agency is a Finnish literary agency jointly owned by the publishing houses Gummerus, Schildts & Söderströms, and Siltala. It represents over 150 authors and illustrators and counts eleven Finlandia Prize winners and five Finlandia Junior Prize winners among the authors it represents.

More Information:
Viivi Arela, CEO | viivi@helsinkiagency.fi | +358 40 838 5376
Touko Siltala, chair of the HLA board | touko@siltalapublishing.fi | +358 400 548403

Author Johanna Förster, who debuted with The Circus of Dreams this spring, participated in a literature panel during the LANU! Children’s and YA literature festival in Helsinki.

The topic of the panel was “Fantasy of Alternative Realities”, and Johanna Förster discussed the dystopic future she built for The Circus of Dreams. The conversation, where Johanna Förster discussed with fellow author Niklas Ahnberg, gave her a chance to discuss The Circus of Dreams, which has been welcomed with brilliant reviews on Finnish media.

In The Circus of Dreams it is a near future, and we follow seventeen-year-old Juuli. On her way to work, Juuli happens upon a fox in the street. Following behind it is a Watcher, who luckily doesn’t notice her helping the fox escape. The everyday world becomes strangely fractured when the same fox, Eduardo Silver, starts appearing in Juuli’s dreams. In them, she’s in a circus. But are her dreams really dreams?

Around this same time, Juuli befriends the street artist and activist Niko, his sister Nini and his old friend Iida. For a while, everything feels new and full of possibilities, but then something terrible happens. Juuli sets out to find her friends, crossing a continent that has changed in peculiar ways. While on her journey she returns to forgotten childhood memories of a circus that was destroyed in a fire. She embarks on an amazing adventure where she meets her own self, her missing father, and events from the past. This multilayered story transports readers to the totalitarian Europe of the recent future, to a magical parallel world, and into Juuli’s memories. These are woven together to form a place where the falsehood of a restrictive environment is juxtaposed against joy and imagination.

Way to go for this amazing YA title and author Johanna Förster!

Ulla Donner’s The Natural Comedy has been nominated for the Urhunden Prize, the most prestigious award given by the Swedish Comics Association. This is the latest of several nominations for this graphically stunning, sharp, and funny title.

The Natural Comedy by Ulla Donner continues to receive accolades: the title has been nominated for the Urhunden Prize, the most prestigious award given by the Swedish Comics Association, Seriefrämjandet.

The Urhunden Prize was established in 1987 and has since been awarded to one domestic and one translated title each year. The prize owes its name to a comics series by Oskar Andersson in the early 1900s that features a dog-like dinosaur named Urhunden (“prehistoric, ancient dog”). In 2021 the prize was put on hold as the organisers planned on renewing and enlarging its structure and this year it is finally back with a blast and lists The Natural Comedy as one of the nominees.

The Natural Comedy is Ulla Donner‘s third graphic novel, and it has been received with wide critical acclaim. Born as a twist on Dante’s The Divine Comedy, the work follows Birch, a leaf who makes a crash landing on Candy after falling off a tree on the way to the Great Autumn Party. The reluctant duo embark on a roadtrip through the forest, which has been destroyed by mankind, and encounter a string of weird characters along the way. Donner’s pencil stuns readers with vivid illustrations rich in blues, whites and yellows that bring the forest to life and give the main characters rounded, human-like and extremely cute features.

The Natural Comedy has previously been nominated for the Finlandia Comics Award and the Most Beautiful Book of the Year Award.

We are delighted with the accolades, and fingers crossed!

Pirkko Saisio’s iconic Helsinki Trilogy continues its journey into the world: the Swedish rights have been sold to Förlaget M. The trilogy made Saisio the first living Finnish author to be included in the Penguin Modern Classics.

The Helsinki Trilogy by Pirkko Saisio, the grand dame of the Finnish literary and dramatic scene, is continuing its journey into the world: Förlaget M has acquired the Swedish rights to the trilogy in a three-book deal.

The Helsinki Trilogy consists of The Lowest Common Multiple, The Backlight, and The Red Book of Farewells. Pirkko Saisio’s autofictional trilogy carries the reader through the childhood, adolescence and adulthood of a girl who wanted to be a boy and started calling herself “her” when she was eight years of age.

The trilogy starts with The Lowest Common Multiple (1998). In the beginning of the novel, the main character, “she”, is already a middle-aged mother. When her father dies, things get shoved o their place. Her memories take her back to her childhood in the 1950s – to a story, which is also about to change.

In the second novel, The Backlight (2000), it is 1968, and the main character is travelling to Switzerland to work in an orphanage. With episodes from her grammar school years, the reader follows her navigating the conflict between a leftist upbringing, Christianity, and her awakening sexuality.

The Red Book of Farewells (2003) starts in the politically turbulent 1970s. The main character begins her studies in the Theatre Academy, falls in love with a woman, and enters an adult life where there are to be farewells every now and then.

The strong themes of the trilogy – the relationship between an individual and the society, sexuality and being queer, and finding your voice – are told in a fragmentary, lyrical style, descriptive of Saisio. As the background, there is Helsinki, changing as the decades go by.

The trilogy made history in January 2024 when Penguin acquired it in a three-book deal which will make Saisio the first living Finnish author to be included in the Penguin Modern Classics. The trilogy is out in German with Klett-Cotta, in French with Robert Laffont and will be a top title on its release with Host in Czech and De Geus in Dutch.

Förlaget M is a Helsinki-based Swedish-language publishing house founded in 2015. Publishing about 25 titles a year, ranging from fiction all the way to children’s books and non-fiction, Förlaget M has rapidly become the home of many successful Finnish titles published in Swedish. The publishing house strives to foster reading and cultural diversity, and they distribute in both Finland and Sweden.

Congratulations to the author and the publisher!