Wonderful news from the Netherlands! The offer for historical romance trilogy, Cotton Mill, written by Ann-Christin Antell, is currently on the table.
The trilogy could be described as Bridgerton meets L. M. Montgomery – an entertaining page-turner appropriate for a wide reader base. The top-quality historical romance with feminist undertones is enhanced with a witty female lead, a strong focus on manners and class distinction, as well as reflections on national awakening and rising social and political unrest. The trilogy has already sold over 114,000 copies in all formats. The third book, published in February 2023, rose to the top ten bestseller list on its first 5 days.
Check out our Literature from Finland podcast episode TIMES where the author discusses the success of her historical fiction.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and Finland, Finland has been invited as a guest of honor to the Nami Island International Children’s Book Festival. With support from FILI, Helsinki Literary Agency, along with other literary agents and illustrators from Finland, had the opportunity to spend a week in Korea during the days of the festival.
This would not have been possible without AMO agency, which became our exclusive co-agent in Korea last month. AMO Agency introduces foreign language books to Korean publishers and more than 5000 foreign books have been licensed and published via the agency since 2007. Currently 6 agents (and 3 children) share happy daily lives, work and chats every day. According to AMO, people in Korea have great interest in Nordic design, for example, but the interest in literature from Finland yet has a lot of space and opportunities to grow . And the agency hopes they can contribute to introducing Finnish culture and literature more widely in Korea.
Meeting with Dasan in Paju book city
Some of the meetings were held in Paju book city, which is located about an hour’s drive from Seoul. Paju is an amazing city of its own entirely devoted to the creation, publication and sales of Korean books. The place shows that the book industry in Korea is a respected area of business.
On Wednesday, our agents along with Korean publishers and illustrators were invited to the Residence of Finnish Ambassador in Seoul, where they could meet in a less formal setting.
We thank all our partners for their fantastic work and are excited to see what is waiting for us in the future.
Tainaron, first published in 1985, was a breakthrough work for Leena Krohn, and remains one of the most recognized titles in her immense body of work. The book earned her nominations of the World Fantasy Award and International Horror Guild Award.
Tainaron (1985 | 2006)
The inhabitants of Tainaron are insect-like, but their experiences and actions seem strangely familiar. We read about them in letters whose recipient remains nameless. Unprecedented metamorphoses are witnessed, strange coincidences are enjoyed and the possibilities of existence pondered. The descriptions are often accurate depictions of the ways of life of particular species, but at the same time, allegories to our own, familiar everyday world.
Considered to be a modern literary classic, Tainaron has been translated to 12 languages.
Last week, in the city of Leipzig, the winner of the EU Prize for Literature was announced. Along with it, 5 nominees received honorary mentions, and we are bursting with pride, since HLA’s Iida Rauma, with her novel Destruction, is among them!
Iida Rauma (photo: Marek Sabogal)
Last year, a new format for the EUPL Prize was introduced: only one winner is now 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 thus selects an overall Prize winner and five special mention awards.
Destruction, Rauma’s third novel, asks how one can write about oneself if one’s own self has been shattered. The novel won the most prestigious literary award in Finland, Finlandia Prize, last autumn, and has so far sold over 30,000 copies in Finland. It was also recently awarded the Blogistania Finlandia Award, the literature prize awarded by the Finnish book bloggers, bookstagramers and booktubers.
Foreign rights of Destruction have been sold to Sweden (Rámus).
Great news has reached us from Sweden: on the 26th of April, author Karin Erlandsson was awarded the Radio Sweden Short Story Prize (Sveriges Radios Novellpris) for her story Box (Lådan).
Karin Erlandsson (photo: Marcus Boman)
The prize is a part of the traditional Literature Week, organised by the Sweden’s National Broadcaster. In addition to a short story, also a novel and a work of poetry are awarded during the event crowning the Literature Week.
In her category, Erlandsson was competing with 4 other authors.
Karin Erlandsson is a Swedish-writing author who lives on Åland Islands. She writes both for children and adults, and has been nominated four times for the Nordic Council Literature Prize.
Her newest work is a narrative nonfiction Blue Yarn. What I know About Knitting, already sold to three territories, including to Blanvalet in Germany.
