Month: November 2021

As anticipated, legendary author Pirkko Saisio’s Autofictional trilogy – The Lowest Common Multiple (1998); The Backlight (2000) and The Red Book of Farewells (2003) – is on fire this autumn!

We’ve only announced the Dutch pre-empt last week, and a new fantastic deal has been made: publishing house Robert Laffont has now pre-empted the trilogy in the French world.

Robert Laffont was founded in 1941, and is now considered to be one of the most important French publishing houses. Editorial director Claire do Sêrro will be including Saisio in the publisher’s collection Pavillon, “that offers the best of foreign literature since 1945”: Saisio will be published along such authors as Margaret Atwood, Tom Wolfe, Bret Easton Ellis, Amitav Ghosh, John Banville, Jennifer Egan and others. Among Robert Laffont’s other collections, one is used to seeing international grands from J. D. Salinger and Mihail Bulgakov to Olga Tokarczuk, to name a few.

Do Sêrro has stated about her newest acquisition:

“Saisio’s trilogy is everything I love and want to stand for: an exceptional, powerful and intimate voice, yet capable of bringing in the universal; a unique portrait of a woman, a generation, a society, incarnated in Saisio’s poetic writing.”

Earlier this year, the third part of the trilogy, THE RED BOOK OF FAREWELLS, was sold to North America (Two Lines Press); incredibly active buzz among the international scouts and publishers indicates that more deals should be expected soon.

Saisio’s new novel, Passion, was published just a couple of weeks ago, and is already among the biggest literary events of the year: a color-saturated, Tarkovskian chronicle of Europe, centered on life’s purpose and the search for meaning, is already running its second print in Finland.

Congratulations to the author on the well-deserved successes!

Fantastic news keep pouring in: the autofictional trilogy – The Lowest Common Multiple (1998); The Backlight (2000) and The Red Book of Farewells (2003) – by the Finnish cultural icon Pirkko Saisio has now been sold in a pre-empt deal to the Dutch publisher De Geus.

De Geus has an international reputation as a publisher of different and distinctive voices from all over the world – authors with an exceptional literary quality and unique view on life and society. They have previously published authors such as Tove Jansson, Deborah Levy, Sami Said, Pajtim Statovci, Olga Tokarczuk, Herta Müller, Bernardine Evaristo, Karl Ove Knausgård, Majgull Axelsson, Maya Angelou and Frida Isberg, to name but a few. 

Acquiring editor Jacoba Casier has stated:

“We can’t wait to introduce Pirkko Saisio to the Dutch readership. Her style and composition are so personal and original. The subjects she touches: feminism, class, gender, sexuality, and the way she treats them is of an overwhelming sharpness and relevance in our current times. We can only admire her talent, her courage, her intelligence and her literary value. It is an author who urgently deserves to be published and read by as many readers as possible.”

Earlier this year, the third part of the trilogy, THE RED BOOK OF FAREWELLS, was sold to North America (Two Lines Press). Active buzz in France and Germany shows us more deals are to expect soon.

Saisio’s new novel, Passion, was published just a couple of weeks ago, and is already among the biggest literary events of the year: a color-saturated, Tarkovskian chronicle of Europe, centered on life’s purpose and the search for meaning, is already running its second print in Finland.

Congratulations to the author on the well-deserved successes!