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Lundberg’s ICE sold to Poland

One of the most beautiful Finlandia Prize winning novels ever, Ulla-Lena Lundberg’s ICE has been acquired to Poland by Marpress.

Ice (2012)

The eight foreign rights deal for Ice was done via Book/lab Literary Agency in Poland.

One of the all-time bestsellers in Finland with over 100,000 copies sold, Ulla-Lena Lundberg’s masterpiece has been previously published in English by Sort of Books, in German by Mare Verlag, in Bulgarian by Izida, in Croatian by Hena com, in Danish by Gyldendal, in Estonian by Eesti Raamat and in Hungarian by Széphalon Könyvmuhely.

The novel tells about a novice Lutheran priest, his wife and baby daughter arriving at a windswept island off the coast of Finland right after the war, in 1946. There they encounter the islanders, a self-sufficient community of fisher folk, and little by little, year by year they get rooted in the unadorned landscape.

“It is a grand novel. You can read it as a gripping story of people and their fates, as a condensation of the tensions in a community, but also as an allegory of the mankind.”
– Aamulehti newspaper

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Karin Erlandsson nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize!

The Victor, the fourth and final book in Karin Erlandsson’s magical series The Song of the Eye Gemstone is nominated for the Nordic Council Children and Young People’s Literature Prize!

The jury stated about the book:

“The author has created a unique story for children, with almost exclusively women characters, using classic contrasts to build her fairy-tale world. Land against sea, rock against wood, black against white, adult traditionalism against the new thinking and experiences of children. (…) The author emphasises that although everyone is different, everyone is needed, and that everyone should use and hone their special talents.

(…) The children bear the responsibility for putting things right, in the true spirit of Greta Thunberg. This is a modern and, at times, cruel fairy tale, with traditional influences from several of the greats of literary history, such as Astrid Lindgren and J.R.R. Tolkien.“

Erlandsson was already nominated for the Nordic Council prize with her first book in the series, The Pearl Fisher (2017). It was awarded the prestigious Runeberg Junior Prize in 2018.

The Nordic Council Children and Young People’s Literature Prize was first awarded in 2013. The prize was born out of the long-standing desire of the Nordic ministers for culture to strengthen and highlight literature for children and young people in the Nordic Region. The winner will be announced on the 27th of October.

Congratulations to the author and fingers crossed!

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Interviews with writers!

We are continuing our creative literary interviews series with HLA’s writers! This season’s most talked-about author Anu Kaaja reveals her fears over publishing Katie-Kate, the novel full of mainstream porn as well as feminist and social class commentary, and traces back the beginnings of her unusual style. Read the interview here.

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Things that Fall from the Sky sold to Arabic – 24th area for the novel

The Arabic rights of Selja Ahava’s Things that Fall from the Sky have been acquired by Egyptian Cultural Assembly, making it 24th foreign sales for the title.

Things that Fall from the Sky (2015)

Selja Ahava’s European Union Prize for Literature winning novel Things that Fall from the Sky will be published in Arabic by Egyptian Cultural Assembly.

The novel tells a story of a girl whose mother dies under a block of ice falling from the sky, of a woman who wins the jackpot twice and of a man hit by a lightning for five times. It has been described a whimsical and thoughtful literary fairy tale.

The rights have been previously been sold to Albania (IDK); Armenia (Guitank); Bulgaria (Colibri); China (Citic); Croatia (Vuković & Runjić); Czech Republic (Pavel Dobrovský – Beta); Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard); World English (Oneworld); Estonia (Post Factum | Eesti Meedia); France (Bleu & Jaune); Georgia (Agora); Germany (Mare Verlag); Hungary (Typotex); Latvia (Lauku Avize); Lithuania (Homo liber); Macedonia (Magor); Poland (Relacja); Serbia (Štrik); Slovenia (KUD Sodobnost International); Spanish (Editorial Bercimuel); Swedish (Bakhall); Turkey (Timas) and Ukraine (V. Books XXi).