News

The World English edition by Hurst of Mannerheim, Marshal of Finland: A Life In Geopolitics, has only just hit the bookstore shelves, but it is already making waves.

Oliver Moody on The Times does not hold back in sketching the portrait of Gustaf Mannerheim, stating that in today’s “post-heroic age Mannerheim seems like a figure of almost unimaginably Homeric proportions”.

In Meinander‘s work the reader learns that Gustaf Mannerheim has, in fact, become an unlikely saviour of the Finnish nation after a string of deeds that are almost hard to believe, making him, in Moody’s words, a “bridge between the worlds of Kipling and Le Carré”.

It is evidently agreed that Meinander‘s work is worth keeping a close eye on, since it is in the same article praised as a “biography [that] oozes good sense and generosity to its predecessors and deserves to become the new standard popular book on its subject”.

Tony Barber on The Financial Times compares his role in Finnish history to that of figures like Winston Churchill in British history and Charles De Gaulle in France, but also to Camillo Cavour in Italy: an unlikely and controversial, yet decisive figure in the making of a nation. A special praise is reserved for Meinander’s ability to highlight the controversy and the flaws of Mannerheim’s character without taking away from his contribution to the history of the nation.

Warm congratulations to the author, and don’t miss out on this title!

Our author Juha Kauppinen has announced that a new book is on the way: Korvaamattomat – kertomuksia maailman avainlajeista (Irreplaceable – tales about the key species of the world). This will be the 5th published non-fiction title for Kauppinen, who is both an author and a journalist.

The Essential Biodiversity, his leading, award-winning title in our catalogue, is a reportage on the disappearing biodiversity on our planet. The starting point are the changing conditions of Finnish biodiversity, leading to globally relevant observations about the interdependence between mankind and nature, and the possible consequences of their clash.

Understanding this background makes it easier to grasp how changes in conditions – such as global warming – impact this web of life.

What sets The Essential Biodiversity apart is that it also looks for solutions to biodiversity loss. It answers the questions “What should be done now?” and “What I can do to prevent biodiversity loss?” The answers are surprising and provoke fresh thinking.

Congratulations and best of luck to the author!

Fantastic news for Karin Erlandsson‘s Home: Wielka Litera has non-exclusively acquired the Polish rights for one of the stories featured in the book.

Home is an outstanding example of giving voice to a place: the entire book is set in Åland, a Swedish-speaking island in Finland, and is in itself a character.

The limitation of space is compensated by the narrative choice of expanding the horizon of time: the book takes the reader from ninth-century Saltvik to present-day Mariehamn with the help of a chain of stories, resulting in what can be described as an episodic novel . Each tale is independent, but somehow linked to the others and the main focus lies on traditionally unsung heroes: the women who stay on the island when the men set out to sea.

Wielka Litera has decided to include the second tale, Ragnhild, in an upcoming anthology that gathers works by prominent Nordic authors.

The book has previously been sold to Denmark, where it has been published by Straarup, making this its 2nd international deal. In Finland, the book is published by Schildts & Söderströms.

Warm congratulations to the author!

HBO Max has launched a docuseries titled The First Five, with the titular figures being the five party leaders of the coalition government led by Sanna Marin. You can find the trailer here.

A government led by an all-women set of leaders was hailed by foreign press as groundbreaking, and the series sets out to explore the challenges faced by them in their role and in the unprecedented times of their mandate.

This brings the spotlight on The Women Who Run Finland, our non-fiction title that dives deep into the behind-the-scenes. As the authors Vappu Kaarenoja and Aurora Rämö emphasize, all-female led governments don’t just spring up from nothing.

Finnish women were the first in Europe to gain the right to vote, Finland enjoyed a dozen successful years under a woman president, and women ministers have since been been a relevant part of the political life of the country.

News of Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s freshly appointed team made American talk show hosts contemplate if the remote Nordic country was actually the stuff of an alternate Wonder Woman universe and the truth, while not quite as supernatural, is just as thrilling.

Märta Tikkanen, whose work has strongly focused on equality and women’s rights over several decades, has been awarded a prize for her life’s work by the Kvinnosaksförbundet Unionen / Naisasialiitto Unioni, the Finnish branch of the International Alliance of Women.

The news has been published on Hufvudstadsbladet, the leading Swedish-language newspaper in Finland.

Tikkanen is a prolific and wildly successful author: The Love Story of The Century, a novel about the struggles of a woman whose husband falls into alcoholism, became an instant undisputed classic of Finnish literature on its debut in 1978 and has sold over 140.000 copies in Sweden alone.

She had already made waves with Manrape (1975), the story of a woman who decides to take revenge on her rapist. The book, now an established classic, was considered something of a scandal when it first came out, but has since paved the way for writing about gender and sexual violence in fiction.