News

The most exciting time of the year has arrived: this week, we will find out all the nominees for the most prestigious literary award in Finland, Finlandia Prize.

First in line is nonfiction category, and we are thrilled to announce that Annika Luther’s book Rye – A Prolific History is competing with 5 other titles for the award!

Rye – A Prolific History takes the reader on a captivating, compelling journey through the millennia as it recounts the story of the grain. Crop failures and famine, the devastation caused by ergot, and innovations such as the heated barn play a role in a rich cultural history sprouting around rye, from the adoption of the “rye flower” as a symbol of conservative politics to an unusual cast of characters, such as Nikolai Vavilov, the botanist who tracked down the plant’s origins. 

The book also addresses rye’s current status a big player in the sourdough starter boom and its future in gene banks and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, designed to preserve diversity in plant life.

Aftonbladet Newspaper stated about the book:

“There are similarities between the new popular science book Rye – A Prolific History, by the Finland Swedish novelist and biologist Annika Luther, and Patrik Svensson’s megasuccess The Book of Eels from 2019. Both authors write about cultural history, focusing on non-human subjects. Both write with curiosity and, at times, a hint of poetry, that leads the reader to unexpected places and insights about ecological relations.”

Annika Luther (b. 1958) is a biologist, award-winning author, and high school teacher. In addition to Rye: A Prolific History (2022), she has published three novels and six books for young adults, of which Letter to the Ends of the Earth (2008) was nominated for the Finlandia Junior Award and won both the Topelius Award and the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland Award.

Finlandia Prize is the most prestigious literary award in Finland, given out yearly in three categories: fiction, nonfiction, and children’s & YA literature. The award sum is 30,000 euros.

The nominees for the children’s category will be announced tomorrow and the fiction nominees on Thursday – the 9th and 10th of November respectively. The winners will be announced on November 30th.

Congratulations to the author for the nomination!

Merja Mäki’s bestselling novel has been chosen among the six Finnish fiction titles with most international potential.

Before the Birds by Merja Mäki came out in January 2022, becoming instantly readers’ and reviewers’ favourite. The novel is set in year 1940, in the Finnish Winter War. A young woman called Alli is forced to leave her home in Karelia behind, as the land is lost to Soviet Union.

After an onerous trek across Finland to the western coast she needs not only to find a home in a new cultural environment but also face an unexpected, life-changing responsibility, come to terms with the complicated relationship with her own mother, and somehow, continue to dream. 

The jury stated about the novel:

“The novel tells a touching story about having to flee and becoming a stranger, about losing your home and possessions and having to settle in other people’s homes. […] It is a novel also for those not interested in historical or refugee stories – it is for everyone who has a home or close ones. […] In addition to depicting a refugee journey and collision of different cultures, the novel tells about blended families. […] The description of how the war affects individuals is topical everywhere, especially now. Even though you wouldn’t have to flee in freezing cold with cattle, losing your home is an experience it is easy to identify with.“

Before the Birds has already attracted the interest of international publishers: the Ukrainian rights were acquired by Astrolabe and earlier this week the Swedish rights by Historiska Media.

The Torch-bearer Prize will be awarded at the Tampere book festival in early December.

HLA’s authors have been awarded the prize for the three previous years in a row: last year, the prize was given to Matias Riikonen’s Matara, in 2020, the winner was Marisha Rasi-Koskinen’s  REC, and in 2019, Minna Rytisalo received it for her novel Mrs C.  In 2015, the prize was given to another HLA author, Finlandia Prize winner Anni Kytömäki for her debut novel Goldheart.

Merja Mäki’s bestselling novel Before the Birds, previously sold to Astrolabe in Ukraine, has been acquired by Historiska Media in Sweden.

Before the Birds by Merja Mäki came out in January 2022, becoming instantly readers’ and reviewers’ favourite. The novel is set in year 1940, in the Finnish Winter War. A young woman called Alli is forced to leave her home in Karelia behind, as the land is lost to Soviet Union.

After an onerous trek across Finland to the western coast she needs not only to find a home in a new cultural environment but also face an unexpected, life-changing responsibility, come to terms with the complicated relationship with her own mother, and somehow, continue to dream. 

A page-turning read, Before the Birds tells a universal story about what it feels to leave behind everything you hold dear, how to survive and live on.

“Mäki does such a vivid job leading the reader on the evacuees’ journey that one feels one is there oneself, freezing and feet covered in bloody blisters. […] The novel expands my understanding of what it means – and how it feels – to leave everything behind.”
– Helsingin Sanomat newspaper

“Before the Birds draws us in, putting us at the mercy of Lake Ladoga’s waves and the frigid winds of its shores. It violently jostles us into an icy sled ride under dark skies. It has our stomachs hollowing out in hunger. It forces us to continue persevering at the mercy of others without hope or any promise things will turn out for the better. And the book does all this with such force we are battered as we are swept along in the flow of events.”
– Kulttuuritoimitus culture magazine

Historiska Media is a Swedish publishing house with a strong focus on historical themes both in fiction and nonfiction; they are the publishers of, for example, Antony Beevor, Simon Scarrow, and Ewa Klingberg. This summer, Historiska Media was acquired by Bonnier.

Anna Englund’s Pine Coat and Susanna Hast’s Body of Evidence have been nominated for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize.

Two brand new novels from this September, Anna Englund’s Pine Coat and Susanna Hast‘s Body of Evidence, have been listed among the best debuts of the year.

In Englund’s Pine Coat, it is year 1931. Elena is living in a small village by the sea, sewing cushioning to the coffins her husband carves. Death is a daily colleague, and life flows along calmly in its familiar channels. But when a strange woman from the capital arrives to buy a coffin, everything changes.

Painting the past and present of her hardscrabble characters with a light, warm, and deft hand, Englund has written a hopeful and optimistic novel about how love can turn things around.

“With a delicate pen, Anna Englund draws forth the internal lives of secondary characters as well. There’s not a trace of beginner’s fumbling, let alone searching for a voice. […] In some remarkable yet very dignified way, Englund’s opus succeeds in being optimistic without falling into childish hope. […] A book that rises from the black keys of angst to beauty.”
– Helsingin Sanomat newspaper

In Hast’s Body of Evidence, all starts from the 1990s, in a small village up north. There is a terraced house, a block of flats, a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room. A crime has been committed, but no one has called the police, no evidence is gathered, suspects are not questioned.

Years later, a woman starts following traces on the fringes of her memory, so as to find the missing archival truth of what happened to her. She needs to write out the truth in order to regain her humanity.

“The novel is an infuriating and moving masterpiece.”
– Eeva magazine

“You could describe Susanna Hast’s debut as […] startling, devastating and revolutionary.”
– Turun Sanomat newspaper

Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize is an award of 15,000 euros given each year to the best Finnish debut of the year. This year’s winner will be announced on 17th November.

Iida Rauma’s lauded novel Destruction was acquired by the Swedish Rámus, the publisher of Louise Glück and Miriam Toews.

Iida Rauma’s third novel Destruction came out in January 2022 and collected instantly an impressive amount of applauding reviews – resulting to the first-print run selling out in a week. Finland’s largest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat wrote:

“Destruction is like an extended depiction of a prison or concentration camp, or perhaps a catalog of evidence at a war crimes tribunal: a detailed report of daily, years-long oppression, of psychological negation and unmitigated violence. (…) Even so, this is no tract. Destruction is first and foremost an artistic endeavor, a novel in complete control of its idiom, and as such a stunning tour de force. (…) Destruction alternates between varying narrative techniques and registers, maintaining its intensity all the while, and complements fiction with facts, facts with a vivid experientiality.”

One of the strongest literary titles of the year in Finland, Destruction has also brought the question about violence towards children and the societal structures supporting it a visible topic in public discussion. “No other type of violence is talked about in the same way as acts and attitudes towards children in school. Such deeds are allowed in the school environment that in the adults’ world would be subject to criminal law,” has Iida Rauma said in one of her interviews.

Rámus förlag in Sweden publishes literary fiction and poetry in translation. Their authors include, among others, the Nobel Prize winning Louise Glück, Miriam Toews, Paul Beatty, Pilar Quintana, Sjón and other authors from about 30 different countries.