Month: May 2023

Fantastic news for the Finnish adult fiction: Czech publisher Bourdon has just acquire the rights to Anni Kytömäki’s masterpiece Goldheart.

Bourdon is a young, energetic publishing house that publishes original and translated literature in the fields of contemporary fiction, popular science, and others.

Goldheart, Kytömäki’s outstanding debut novel, is set in 1917, the year of great political turmoil in Finland. It’s a story about people with different, yet intertwining destinies: a man who lies down on a rock, intending to freeze to death; a woman who writes to change the world; a girl who grows up with more courage than her father; and a boy who conquers his own fear and meets the wild, free heart of the forest.

Awarded with the Torch-bearer Prize, Blogistania Finlandia Prize and the Kaarle Prize, Goldheart has received splendid reviews. It was nominated for Finland’s biggest literary award, the Finlandia Prize, and the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize for best debuts. The novel has sold ca. 25 000 copies in Finland. 

This August, Goldheart will be published in France by Éditions Rue de l’échiquier, in a beautiful translation by Anne Colin du Terrail. The French publisher has acquired option rights to all three titles by Anni Kytömäki.

In Finland, Kytömäki is published by Gummerus.

Congratulations to the author!

More sales news after our fruitful trip to South Korea this spring: Korean Studies Information (KSI) has acquired Karin Erlandsson’s beautiful children’s novel for the middle-grade readers, Night Express.

KSI focuses on publishing children’s picture books that promote self-searching, independence, family love, environment, and diversity, among other themes. The publisher has recently acquired another title from HLA’s list, Skeleton, a picture book written by Malin Klingenberg and illustrated by Maria Sann.

This is the 8th foreign rights sale for the Erlandsson’s title, which was awarded the Runeberg Junior Prize 2021 and nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2021.

In this Christmas-spirited story, beautifully illustrated by the renowned Peter Bergting, a little girl called Dania suddenly notices that her beloved Granny has become older and more forgetful during the past years, and sometimes speaks nonsense. When Granny mysteriously disappears, Dania embarks on a magical night train, thus beginning an unforgettable adventure, with an aim to find someone she have loved but lost.

An enchanting and wildly riveting story brimming with the magic of Christmas has 24 chapters and is also splendid for reading out loud.

Congratulations to the author!

Towards the summer, some lovely children’s books deals! Two new deals are now confirmed for Malin Klingenberg’s most recent picture book, Skeleton (2023), illustrated by Maria Sann: De Vier Windstreken acquired world Dutch rights, while Korean Studies Information (KSI) will be publishing it in South Korea.

De Vier Windstreken is a beautiful children’s literature publisher based in The Netherlands. Their main focus is on picture books for various age groups.

KSI, on its part, focuses on publishing children’s picture books that promote self-searching, independence, family love, environment, and diversity, among other themes.

Skeleton is a tenderly told story about a child overcoming his fears while learning what each of us is made of. When little Teo, who is afraid to death of skeletons, learns he has one inside of him too, he gets worried: Is there a skeleton inside everyone? Sometimes parts of us break and need to be fixed with a cast.

“An expert at telling humorous stories, Klingenberg has toned done the funny business and written a book that is inventive, multilayered, and in complete solidarity with its child protagonist. […] Klingenberg has partnered here with one of Finland’s sharpest illustrators, Maria Sann. If this were a ballroom dance competition, they’d be standing on the podium’s top spot. Sann succeeds in enriching the text with unexpected illustrative strategies and angles that reveal a child’s perspective. […] Read Skeleton, and you’ll see how Klingenberg and Sann’s polished pearl of a picture book grows with every read into a brilliant bullseye that literally and figuratively gets under the skin of the protagonist and reader alike.”
– Hufvudstadsbladet newspaper

Congratulations to the authors!

 A fantastic week for our modern classic, the Helsinki Trilogy, and its legendary author Pirkko Saisio: Romanian publisher Pandora M, an imprint of Editura Trei, becomes the 7th publisher to acquire the rights for the trilogy.

Established in 1995, Pandora M publishes classic and contemporary literature as well as literary essay in three collections: Anansi World Fiction; Literati; and PanDa. Saisio will be published along such world-renowned literary names as Annie Ernaux, Olga Ravn, Georghi Gospodinov, Manuel Vilas, Maggie O’Farrell and many others.

Saisio is, without a doubt, quickly becoming an international phenomenon, no lesser than the Danish Tove Ditlevsen a few years ago. The American publisher Two Lines Press has just launched the third part of the Helsinki trilogy, The Red Book of Farewells (2003), translated by Mia Spangenberg, and will later continue with the two remaining titles: The Lowest Common Multiple (1988) and The Backlight (2000).

The German publisher Klett-Cotta, who pre-empted the entire trilogy in the autumn 2021, will also be starting with the third book, which will be published this upcoming autumn as their lead title. On this occasion, a group of prominent journalists from various German publications and media channels such as Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Tagesspiegel, Welt and others are visiting Helsinki this week to meet Saisio and tour the important places of her childhood and youth.

In the Netherlands, where the trilogy was pre-empted by De Geus, the first part will also be released as the publisher’s lead title, this June. In France, the trilogy was pre-empted by Robert Laffont and the publication is planned for 2024. In Hungary, the trilogy is published by Polar.

In Finland, Siltala will be publishing a new edition of the trilogy this autumn, with entirely new covers.

Saisio’s Autofictional trilogy is one of the masterpieces of Finnish literature. Each novel was nominated for Finland’s biggest literary award, the Finlandia Prize, the last one finally taking the prize. The latest nomination for Saisio, who has during her long career received numerous literary awards, came for her bestselling novel Passion – a color-saturated, Tarkovskian chronicle of Europe. Passion was recently sold to the Czech publisher Host, who also acquired the entire Helsinki trilogy.

To learn more about Saisio’s work, you can check out our Author in Focus newsletter.

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.