Leino’s Heaven Wins The European Union Prize for Literature!

Piia Leino’s dystopian novel HEAVEN set in year 2058 has won the European Union Literary Prize. The novel was published by Kustantamo S&S in 2018.

The board describes HEAVEN as a timely, strong vision about the short-sighted choices made in consumer societies. Leino has knit the oppressive future world together with finesse and credibility.

The novel takes place in Helsinki, a city state, former capital of Finland, in 2058. Society has collapsed after a civil war, and an authoritarian nationalist movement called Light has seized the power. Political dissidents have fled to the North. All borders are closed and contact with the outside world is non-existent.

Read more about the novel and the author here. Congratulations to the author!

(Photo: Mikko Rasila)

Interviews with Writers!

We are continuing our creative literary interviews series with HLA’s writers! This time it’s the queen of crime Eva Frantz – the winner of The Best Crime Novel of the year 2018 and the Runeberg Junior Award 2019.

Find out here how the unconventional police detective Anna Glad was born, what are children’s reactions to a horror and crime novel for the middle-graders, and what is the best time in the day to think murders and mystery! And of course, the cherry on the cake – the entertaining questionnaire!

A new Interviews with Writers series!

We at HLA have decided to celebrate our wonderful writers and their books with creative literary interviews. Short, interesting and entertaining – a perfect match to your morning coffee or a metro ride home. We will publish 1–2 interviews a month. The series is opened by the sophisticated Niina Miettinen: find out here how the characters of her novel Wild Rosemary were born, what book is the hardest to write, and what is Niina’s favourite curse word.