Author: Anastasia

Happy international news: author Iida Rauma has been nominated for the EU Prize for Literature (EUPL), for her Finlandia-winning novel Destruction.

Last year, a new format for the EUPL Prize was introduced: only one winner will be selected from all the nominees instead of each participating country having a winner. The initial book selection is conducted by national organisations, each entitled to submit one book that is of high literary quality with potential for translatability. A second round of selection is conducted by a seven-member European jury, who will thus select an overall Prize winner and five special mention awards. 

The 2023 EUPL Prize winner and the five special mentions will be revealed on 28 April, during the announcement ceremony at the Leipzig Book Fair.

You can read about all the nominees here.

Destruction, Rauma’s third novel, asks how one can write about oneself if one’s own self has been shattered.

While jogging at night, A sees a familiar figure at the city’s desolate fringes and realizes nothing ends, nothing is over. So begins a breathless, desperate attempt to hunt down and escape the past across the ravaged city of Turku, into the water-damaged classrooms of the 1990s and a darkness for which there are no words but still must be expressed.

How can we document the horrors of one’s childhood in a culture where adults hate children and want to erase the traces of past wrongs?

Destruction succeeds at the impossible. The furious urge to remember, a love for the marvelous history of a burned and demolished city as well as pain that strikes at the core are woven into a stunning tableau of violence, its rings spreading out to the ends of the earth. The novel demonstrates the ability of literature to tell the truth when all other ways of speaking have been denied or condemned as lunacy.

Destruction won the most prestigious literary award in Finland, Finlandia Prize, last autumn. It has sold over 30,000 copies in Finland, and foreign rights have been sold to Sweden (Rámus).

As of 1st of March, Helsinki Literary Agency has begun a new partnership with Benas Bėrantas from Book Smugglers Agency (Lithuania) to represent a selection of our picture books and novels for children.

Benas will be working in the following language territories:

English, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish (excluding Swedish language titles), Icelandic, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Dutch.

We at HLA are very happy to have Benas, a well-connected and ambitious agent, to help us represent our children’s list. We think that a collaboration between two agencies from small countries will strengthen both lists and help emphasize the best qualities of our countries’ literature: uniqueness, exquisiteness and quality.

Bėrantas has stated about the partnership:
“Already known as a reliable provider of selected Lithuanian literature for young readers, Book Smugglers Agency is excited to broaden the representation with a strong list of children’s books from Finland. We feel both agencies share the same values and, like in any fruitful partnership, it will hopefully allow us to grow and become stronger together.”

More information will be provided by the CEO of Helsinki Literary Agency, Urpu Strellman: urpu@helsinkiagency.fi

Happy day for the Nordic countries: the nominees for the 2023 Nordic Council Literature Prize have been announced, and we are proud to share that HLA author Peter Sandström, with his novel The Big Blonde’s Last Summer, is among the nominees!

Sandström is published in Finland by Schildts & Söderströms.

The jury of the prize stated about the book:

“The Big Blonde’s Last Summer is a poignant and heartbreaking portrayal of such timeless human themes as love, parenthood and ageing, in prose that is both concrete and intense in its emotion and thought.”

The story revolves around a middle-aged man, who is preparing for his second child to leave home. At the same time, he must clear out his deceased parents’ home. With stray cats and one rather likeable mouse for company, he strews a cheerful cacophony of belongings around the garden. Unexpected guests appear in the guise of old friends, the ones who call the man the Big Blonde. At the heart of everything is a love story. It’s the early 1980s, and a young couple is attending university in the capital. The woman is Limone, and the man wants to spend his life with her.

Read more about the novel and the jury’s opinion here.

Born in 1963, Peter Sandström made his debut in 1998 with the short story collection Plebejerna, which was followed by two more short story collections and six novels. He has won several awards, including the Runeberg Prize and the Svenska Litteratursällskapet prize for the novel Autumn Apples (2016); it was also nominated for Finlandia Prize. He received the Signe Ekblad-Eldh Prize from the Swedish Academy in 2021, and, in the same year, the Stiftelsen Längmanska Cultural Fund Prize for the novel Love is a Tame Animal. 

Congratulations to the author!

Wonderful news has reached us from Spain: Radio Popov, the Finlandia Junior winner of 2020, by Anja Portin, has been awarded the Premio Kirico Prize in Spain as the best YA book.

The children’s novel was published in Spanish and Catalan by Nordica Libros. The Spanish translation is by Luisa Gutiérrez, and Emma Claret has translated the book into Catalan.

Premio Kirico belongs to the award group called Todos tus Libros, which is given out yearly by the booksellers in Spain in various categories. The Premio Kirico Prize in particular is awarded to the best – according to the booksellers – children’s and YA books published in Spain during the year. Radio Popov was chosen from 12 finalists.

We remind you that Radio Popov won the most prestigious literary award, Finlandia Junior Prize, in 2020, and foreign rights of the book have been sold to 24 territories.

Finally, fantastic news from Italy for HLA’s hit children’s title, the Finlandia Junior winner A Giraffe’s Heart Is Unbelievably Large, written by Sofia Chanfreau and illustrated by Amanda Chanfreau: after a heated auction, Italian rights have been sold to Salani.

This is the 8th foreign rights sale for the title, after the recent acquisitions in Mainland China (Everafter) and Korea (Dasan).

Founded in Florence in 1862, Adriano Salani Editore is one of the oldest publishing houses still operating in Italy. Salani has made a name for itself in the world of children’s books by publishing some of the best mainstream fiction and juvenile literature, and creating series that have fired the imagination of whole generations of youthful readers. It is the home of books by J. K. Rowling, Astrid Lindgren, Roald Dahl, Tove Jansson and many other children’s classics. Recently the house has also started to expand its offering by signing up successful writers of adult fiction.

From HLA’s list, Salani has previously acquired another Finlandia Junior winner, children’s novel Radio Popov, by Anja Portin.

A Giraffe’s Heart Is Unbelievably Large has already sold ca. 10,000 copies in Finland altogether, and has been the fastest-selling title on HLA’s list this spring. In Finland, the book was published by Schildts & Söderströms.

In addition to winning the most prestigious literary award in the country, Finlandia Junior Prize, the book was also nominated for Runeberg Junior Prize and received an honorary mention in the competition.

Congratulations to the authors for such a success!