News

Gallimard has acquired the World French rights of Jukka Viikilä’s Finlandia Prize winning novel Watercolours from a Seaside City.

Gallimard, founded in 1911, is the largest independent publishing house in France. Throughout the 20th century, Gallimard has published such authors as Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Marcel Proust, and is also the home of 2008 Nobeal laureate Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio.

Watercolours from a Seaside City (2016) is a fictive diary of a German architect, Carl Ludwig Engel, who was commissioned by the Russian emperor to build the capital of Finland in the beginning of the 19th century. The novel has been praised of its lyrical touch and aphoristical observations of life. The novel has so far sold over 43,000 copies in Finland.

 

Jukka Viikilä (b. 1973) is a poet, writer, and dramaturge.

Emma Press from the UK has acquired the World English rights of Sanna Mander’s Finlandia Junior Prize winning picture book The Lost Key. 

Emma Press is an independent publisher based in Birmingham and focused on publishing beautiful, thought-provoking books. Founded in 2012, Emma Press has been focusing on poetry and children’s titles.

The Lost Key (2017) is the winner of Finland’s biggest literary prize Finlandia Junior, worth 30,000 euros and handed  out yearly to the best children’s or young adult book.

Sanna Mander (b. 1980) is an awarded author, illustrator and graphic designer.

Ulla-Lena Lundberg’s Finlandia Prize winning novel Ice has been sold to Croatian publisher Hena com.

Hena com is a prominent publishing house with a list of strong literary authors, such as Don DeLillo, Amos Oz and Umberto Eco.

Ice (2012) is one of the most successful Finlandia Prize winning novels. It has sold in Finland over 100,000 copies, and its rights have been sold so far to nine countries.

Karin Erlandsson’s adventurous children’s novel The Pearl Fisher has been sold to Sinisukk in Estonia.

Sinisukk is one of the biggest publishers of children’s literature in Estonia, with authors such as Astrid Lindgren, P. L. Travers and Rachel Renée Russell on their list.

Pearl Fisher is the first book of four part series Song for the Eye Gemstone. It won the publisher’s children’s novel competition, was nominated for Arvid Lydecken Prize and won the prestigeous Runeberg Junior Prize in February 2018. At the moment is nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize in two categories (Finland and Åland).

Karin Erlandsson (b. 1978) works as a journalist in Åland. She has written before three novels for adult readers, The Mink Farm (2014) shortlisted for the Nordic Council Literature Prize, and a cook book. The Pearl Fisher (2017) is her first children’s novel.

Danish publishing house Jensen & Dalgaard has acquired Selja Ahava’s new novel Before My Husband Disappears – a story about a woman who’s life is changed by a single sentence. Published in Finnish in autumn 2017, the novel has gotten an enormous amount of attention in Finland.

Jensen & Dalgaard have just published Ahava’s previous novel Things that Fall from the Sky that was awarded with European Union Prize for Literature in 2016 and nominated for the Finlandia  Prize and the Torch-bearer Prize. The novel has been sold so far to 16 countries.

Selja Ahava (b. 1974) is a dramaturge and a scriptwriter. Before My Husband Disappears is her third novel.