Author: Anastasia

Exciting news in the department children’s literature: two more titles by the author of spooky novels for the middle grade readers, Eva Frantz, are travelling abroad!

Frantz will now have a publisher in France, as her Christmas-themed spooky children’s novel The Mystery of Helmersbruk Manor (illustrated by Elin Sandström) has been acquired by Rageot. Rageot is one of the best-established children’s publishers in France, with the list of more than 400 titles, including the books for all age groups.

This is the 5th foreign rights deal for the title.

Meanwhile, in Denmark, ABC forlag acquired Frantz’s debut children’s novel, The Mystery of Raspberry Hill (2018), awarded the prestigious Runberg Junior Prize. The Danish house has previously published The Queen of the Night (2020), by the same author.

This is the 6th foreign rights deal for this title.

Eva Frantz rose to prominence with her adult crime series about detective Anna Glad. The books have sold over 55,000 copies in Finland altogether, and foreign rights have been sold to 5 territories. The second book in the series, The Eighth Maiden (2018), was awarded The Crime Novel of the Year in 2019, and nominated for the Glass Key Award, along with authors such as Jo Nesbø.

Frantz published her first book for children in 2018, to great success. Check out our Literature from Finland podcast episode ATMOSPHERES, where Frantz discussed writing for both adults and children.

In Finland, Frantz is published by Schildts & Söderströms.

Congratulations to the author for the deals!

Great news for the beginning of the year: Karin Erlandsson’s wonderful narrative nonfiction, The Blue Yarn – What I Know About Knitting, has been sold to Denmark and Great Britain (World English)! Erlandsson’s publisher in Finland is Schildts & Söderströms.

The Danish publisher will be Straarup & Co., a lovely house that, from HLA’s list, has previously published Karin Erlandsson’s novel for children, The Night Express, as well as the Christmas-themed mystery novel for children, The Mystery of Helmersbruk Manor, written by Eva Frantz and illustrated by Elin Sandström.

The Blue Yarn will be published in the English world will be Dedalus, who is also the publisher of Erlandsson’s The Song of the Eye Gemstone series.

The Blue Yarn: What I Know About Knitting, by award-winning novelist Karin Erlandsson, is an inspiring book seasoned with knitting humour about the history of knitting, women who knit, and its enduring appeal. Erlandsson weaves together a nonfiction book, in which personal memories expand into sharp observations about the effects of knitting on the knitter, those close to them, and society at large.

In it, knitting is presented not only in terms of clothing and preserving tradition, but also as a means of creating and conveying something new. As the world around us burns, it can be a way to survive – or to break the ranks. For those who are busy and stressed, it can be a means of recovering and finding balance. 

These are the first foreign rights deals for the book.

Congratulations to the author!

More fantastic end-of-the-year news for our backlist titles: Minna Rytisalo’s phenomenal bestseller from 2016, Lempi (published in Finland by Gummerus), has now been sold to Bakhåll in Sweden, making it the 6th foreign rights deal for the title.

Bakhåll is an independent publisher focusing primarily on literary fiction, as well as avantgarde and modern classic titles. It is the Swedish home of Frantz Kafka, Anita Desai, Ernest Hemingway, Philip K. Dick, Willy Vlautin and many others. From HLA’s list, Bakhåll has previously published one of the most internationally successful titles from Finland and the EU Prize for Literature winner in 2015, Things that Fall From the Sky, by Selja Ahava (also published by Gummerus in Finland).

A debut novel, Lempi became widely successful immediately after its publication in 2016; the novel sold ca. 30,000 copies in Finland, and just as many copies in Germany, where it was published by Hanser in 2018.

Lempi  is a novel with a singular voice about love, the thirst for life, happenstance, and fate. A story of a woman starts as a fairytale-happiness, but soon evolves into a tragedy that becomes the turning point in the lives of three people. With her timeless but completely fresh and controlled language Rytisalo shows how the main characters of their own lives are just supporting characters in the lives of other.

“Rytisalo has created a precious tapestry where the feelings of the protagonists are timeless, dependless of place and totally fresh, as always in the best of fiction. The novel as a whole is excellently drafted and the language is amazingly balanced at all times.”
– Helsingin Sanomat newspaper

“Lempi is one of the books that seem to have been created easily, as if the perfect text would just have flown from the author’s fingertips to the paper and set itself in a ready form. The novel is effortlessly stylish, a complete whole.”
– Aamulehti newspaper

The novel was shortlisted as the favourite book by German-speaking booksellers in Switzerland, also the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, the prestigious Runeberg Prize and the Lapland Literature Prize. 

Some amazing news to share just before the end of the year: a living legend and a crucial figure in the canon of feminist literature from Finland, Märta Tikkanen, will now have a new publisher in France, as Cambourakis acquires the rights to republish three classics by the author: Manrape (1975); The Love Story of the Century (1978); and The Great Chaser (1989).

Founded in 2006, Éditions Cambourakis has a small, yet diverse and eclectic list of titles varying from translated literary fiction to graphic novels and children’s books. Tikkanen’s work will be published in Cambourakis’s paperback collection of contemporary classics, alongside with important feminine voices such as Sigrid Undset, Grazia Deledda, Edna Ferber and many more.

Märta Tikkanen (b. 1935) is a Finland-Swedish journalist, writer, and teacher. In her broad output, she has critically dealt with gender roles and the shackles that bind women, as well as women’s liberation and the longing to realize oneself. With Manrape, she became a central figure in the Nordic women’s movement.

Tikkanen’s work has been translated into over 20 languages. In 2020, The Love Story of the Century was published in the English world, by the independent publisher Deep Vellum.

Over her career, Tikkanen has been awarded various prestigious prizes, including the Nordic Women’s Alternative Literature Prize in 1979, the Swedish Academy’s Finland Prize in 2002 and Finland’s State Literary Prize in 2011.

Check out an incredibly rich, astonishing interview with E. L Karhu, the author of To My Brother, one of the most sensational Finnish novels in 2021.

In it, Karhu discusses the themes of the novel, the biggest literary influences on her writing, as well as the importance of intercontextuality of working in two language spheres.

Read the interview here.