Two HLA titles nominated for the Rudolf Koivu Prize

Fantastic news for our children’s list: the nominations for the Rudolf Koivu Prize are out, and two of our titles are among them, namely Ilja KarsikasThe Unicorn and Sanna Mander‘s My Teeny-Tiny Witch. The Rudolf Koivu Prize is awarded biennially to the best illustrators of books for both children and young adults.

© Ilja Karsikas, The Unicorn, 2022

Ilja Karsikas’ The Unicorn ( 2022) is warm-hearted picture book about complicated conditions at home, family life and love. It is based on the author’s own memories and childhood experiences in a caring, ordinary family.

The Unicorn touches on the difficult topic of alcoholism in a delicate way, and with stunning, colourful illustrations that will enchant any reader. The book has been sold to Korea, and an offer from Sweden is on the table.

Sanna Mander, Teeny Tiny Witch (2021)

Sanna Mander’s My Teeny-Tiny Witch (2021) is a beautiful picture book about a little witch that lives in every child and perhaps even every adult.

Harri, the protagonist, is a wonderfully well-behaved child. Except his best friend, the little witch Axe Rexona, is very much of a troublemaker, and it’s hard to tell them apart, since no-one can see Axe.


We all have a teeny tiny witch: the one that makes us cranky and naughty, makes us do silly things and act up. Mander’s illustrations are flurry and full of energy, and visually gorgeous. The book has been sold to Estonia.

The winner of this year’s Rudolf Koivu’s prize will be announced on Thursday November 16th.

Warm congratulations to both authors, and fingers crossed!

Beasts of the Sea nominated for the Finlandia Prize

The internationally most successful Finnish debut ever, Iida Turpeinen’s Beasts of the Sea, has been nominated for Finland’s biggest literary award, the Finlandia Prize, after nominations for the Torch-bearer Prize and the best debut prize.

After an immense international success and sales soon closed to 16 language areas, Iida Turpeinen’s debut Beasts of the Sea has started collecting also recognition on the Finnish soil. After nominations for the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize as the best debut of the year and the nomination for the Torch-bearer Prize, the novel is now also a candidate for the Finlandia Prize, the biggest and most prestigious literary award in Finland.

The Finlandia Prize jury stated:
“Man’s relationship to nature and other animal species and the exploitation of animals as raw material for human society is a core theme in contemporary ethical-philosophical debates. Beasts of the Sea takes a riveting approach to this theme, melding the history of science with fine-grained portrayals of characters from various periods. Beasts of the Sea brings an unfamiliar creature to such vivid life that, as a reader, one is compelled to visit the museum and breathe the same air as its skeleton.”

Iida Turpeinen
(Photo: Susanna Kekkonen)

Beasts of the Sea has written Finnish literary history already now on the international arena, as its rights have been quickly sold to a dozen areas with aggressive pre-empts and in heated auctions. Currently, the rights have been sold to 14 areas, with offers on the table for two more (Catalan and Czech). The international publishers are:

World English, MacLehose and Little, Brown (pre-empted)
German, Fischer (pre-empted)
World French, Autrement (auction)
World Spanish, Seix Barral (pre-empted)
Italy, Neri Pozza (pre-empted)
Dutch, Singel (pre-empted)
Sweden, Albert Bonnier (pre-empted)
Norway, Gyldendal (pre-empted)
Denmark, People’s (pre-empted)
Estonia, Tänapäev
Greece, Ikaros 
Hungary, Polar
Portugal, Porto Editora
Slovenia, Mladinska.

Beasts of the Sea (2023)

The novel is a science-fueled story of extinctions with a huge marine mammal, Steller’s sea cow, as its protagonist. With her short, concise sentence and the skills of a great storyteller, Turpeinen has created a page-turning literary work is that is hugely topical despite the fact that the events of the novel take place in 18th, 19th and 20th century.

Iida Turpeinen (b. 1987) is a Helsinki-based literary scholar currently writing a dissertation on the intersection of the natural sciences and literature.

Finlandia Prize is Finland’s biggest literary award, given out in three categories: fiction, children’s and young adult literature, and nonfiction. Each award is worth 30,000 euros. The winners will be announced on 30th November.

Antti Hurskainen’s A Wooden Prayer nominated for the Finlandia Prize

In Hurskainen’s third novel, a man of faith does an act of mercy and faces the consequences.

One of the six nominees for Finland’s biggest literary award, the Finlandia Prize, is Antti Hurskainen’s novel A Wooden Prayer. The novel tells about a verger, a man of faith, and a single father to a five-year-old girl. Unique in its profound and powerful ethos, the novel has been received in Finland with praising reviews.

A Wooden Prayer (2023)

Finlandia Prize jury stated :
“Faith, hope and love are elemental in Christian doctrine but seldom examined in contemporary literature. This novel is brave enough to not shy away from them and to question the workaday Lutheran attitude to faith. The novel is an exceptionally passionate story about the steadfast faith of a person that radiates into their everyday actions. Hurskainen’s language is as sharp as the main character’s thinking.”

Other reviews of the novel include, among others, the following characterizations:

“Intellectually stimulating novel glows with negativity. […] A Wooden Prayer is a harsh novel that has little regard for curling into an armchair.”
Helsingin Sanomat newspaper

Hurskainen has written a catechism for our time. […] Faith, hope, love, suffering and forgiveness are not just biblical concepts. They are themes that share a link with all human life, and the Bible might work as a useful tool in approaching them. If you can’t be bothered to crack open the Bible, you can at least read A Wooden Prayer.”
Kulttuuritoimitus.fi literature magazine

We are most happy to welcome Antti Hurskainen to the Helsinki Literary Agency, with huge congratulations of the nomination!

Antti Hurskainen (Photo: Laura Malmivaara)
Antti Hurskainen
(Photo: Laura Malmivaara)

Antti Hurskainen (b. 1986) has written four critically acclaimed collections of essays and three novels: 22—A Story About Eating (2019), Withering (2021), and A Wooden Prayer (2023). A Wooden Prayer, lauded by critics, has been nominated for the Torch-bearer Prize as well as Finlandia, the largest literature prize in Finland. His work often deals with literature, popular culture and religion.

Finlandia Prize is Finland’s biggest literary award, given out in three categories: fiction, children’s and young adult literature, and nonfiction. Each award is worth 30,000 euros. The winners will be announced on 30th November.

Beasts of the Sea and A Wooden Prayer nominated for the Torch-bearer Prize

Iida Turpeinen and Antti Hurskainen are among the nominees for the title most likely to succeed outside Finland.

Iida Turpeinen‘s exceptional debut Beasts of the Sea has been nominated for the Torch-bearer prize.

The prize jury said about the book:
The history of an animal species that became mythical shortly after its discovery is told through extraordinary human destinies, and the melville-esque sea adventure is combined with a cautionary ecological tale and women’s academic history. Castaways and social circles are as fascinating oddities at the edge of the world as the animals they are looking for. The cosmopolitan protagonists of the debut novel, unique in its content, speak across boundaries of species and language.

Antti Hurskainen‘s stunning novel about faith, guilt and mercy, A Wooden Prayer is one of the six nominees of this prestigious prize.

The jury stated:
Hurskainen’s darkly beautiful book makes one wonder if anyone has the right or the ability to judge one another. The reader ends up examining their own values ​​and choices through embarrassing moral considerations. The book raises questions about the justification of human action, the essence of grace and the order of importance of things. Contemplation of the fundamental quality of humanity and the necessity of reflection are universal.

The Torch-bearer Prize is a literature award given yearly for a title with most potential to succeed internationally. The winner will be announced on December 2nd at the Tampere Book Festival. Earlier winners on HLA’s list are Merja Mäki, Matias Riikonen, Marisha Rasi-Koskinen , Minna Rytisalo and Anni Kytömäki.

Beasts of the Sea sold to Slovenia, Portugal and Greece

Iida Turpeinen’s debut Beasts of the Sea starred by the extinct, strange sea mammal, Steller’s sea cow, continues it journey to new areas.

Beasts of the Sea has written Finnish literary history on the international arena, as its rights were quickly sold to a dozen areas with aggressive pre-empts and in heated auctions. With its success, the novel is the internationally most widely sold Finnish language debut ever.

The latest foreign rights sales are to Slovenia, where the country’s biggest publishing house Mladinska acquired the rights. In Portugal, the rights were sold to Porto Editora, the publisher of authors such as José Saramago and Annie Ernaux and in Greece, to Ikaros, which publishes Odysseus Elytis, George Saunders and Marieke Lucas Rijneveld among others.

Currently, the rights have been sold to 14 areas, with offers on the table for two more (Catalan and Czech). The international publishers are:

World English, MacLehose and Little, Brown (pre-empted)
German, Fischer (pre-empted)
World French, Autrement (auction)
World Spanish, Seix Barral (pre-empted)
Italy, Neri Pozza (pre-empted)
Dutch, Singel (pre-empted)
Sweden, Albert Bonnier (pre-empted)
Norway, Gyldendal (pre-empted)
Denmark, People’s (pre-empted)
Estonia, Tänapäev
Greece, Ikaros 
Hungary, Polar
Portugal, Porto Editora
Slovenia, Mladinska.