Month: January 2024

A Wooden Prayer by Antti Hurskainen has now been sold to Denmark, marking the 2nd foreign territory for this title, which has received four literary prize nominations over the last few months.

Fantastic news for our fiction list: A Wooden Prayer by Antti Hurskainen is travelling to Denmark, where it will be published by Jensen & Dalgaard.

A Wooden Prayer by Antti Hurskainen has received extensive attention domestically, with four literary prize nominations and praising reviews. The book was a Finlandia Prize nominee, and a Torch-bearer Prize nominee this autumn, and it is still running for both the Runeberg Prize and the Savonia Award. The Helsingin Sanomat newspaper has reviewed it as an“intellectually stimulating novel glows with negativity. […] A Wooden Prayer is a harsh novel that has little regard for curling into an armchair.”

The novel has already travelled to Hungary, where it will be published by Polar.

A Wooden Prayer follows Turtola, the verger  in a small congregation in the countryside. He spends his days sawing wood, raking the churchyard, praying, and taking his five-year-old daughter Monika to the nursery.  Sirén, the vicar, is getting more and more dependent on alcohol whilst trying to write his doctorate and tolerate God’s silence. The two have topics to talk about: the director Ingmar Bergman, theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, arson in Kiihtelysvaara’s church, public displays of apology and the comedy of the grim reaper.

But then, Monika’s health takes a turn for the worse and Turtola is abruptly faced with an impossible choice. Turtola chooses mercy, and the consequences are merciless, resulting in a novel that asks big and difficult questions about ethos, life, death and religion.

Jensen & Dalgaard is a Danish independent publishing house which has rapidly become the Danish home of many highly praised and well-loved Finnish authors such as Matias Riikonen, Anu Kaaja, Leena Krohn and Pauliina Rauhala.

Warm congratulations to the author and the publisher!

Rival to the Cotton Mill, the 3rd volume in the Cotton Mill Trilogy by Ann-Christin Antell, has been ranked in the top 10 most listened books of 2023 on Bookbeat Finland. In Sweden the 2nd volume, Heir To The Cotton Mill, has just been welcomed on Storytel Sweden. The series, sold to five countries so far, has been a sensational bestseller in Finland.

Wonderful news for our author Ann-Christin Antell: the wildly successful Cotton Mill Trilogy has been confirmed as a readers’ favourite and the third book in the series, Rival to the Cotton Mill, in ranked in the Top 10 of the year’s most listened books on Bookbeat for 2023.

In Sweden, Heir To The Cotton Mill (Swedish title: Bomullsfabrikens arvtagare) has just been welcomed after the fantastic success of the first volume.

The Cotton Mill Trilogy has been a sensational bestseller in Finland, with over 140.000 sold copies in Finland alone, proving that entertainment and quality are not mutually exclusive. This masterfully constructed series follows three generations of women, from the late 1800s leading up to the Roaring Twenties, skilfully combining romance, Finnish history, the fight for workers’ rights and feminism.

The Shadow of the Cotton Mill depicts the life of an independent woman, Jenny Malmström, in an era when industrialists make up the new elite, women demand equality, and Finland’s status as a nation is undergoing a transformation.

Heir to the Cotton Mill picks up the story of the Barker family that began in The Shadow of the Cotton Mill. It is now the early 20th century, and Finland’s cultural elite, with their strong sense of nationhood, find themselves at odds with Russia’s increasingly oppressive policies. Meanwhile, social mobility and working-class ideologies are on the rise.

Rival to the Cotton Mill is the final book of the Cotton Mill trilogy about the Barker family. It is the modern era of jazz and progress, and Jenny’s granddaughter and Martta’s daughter Paula has gained her position as the advertising manager of the mill. Times are changing, but fortunately there seems to be love left for the young ones, too.

So far, the Cotton Mill Trilogy has traveled to Denmark, France, Iceland, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Warm congratulations to the author, and don’t miss out on this series!