Month: February 2026

The British edition of Backlight by Pirkko Saisio (Helsinki Trilogy #2) has landed a glowing review on the Financial Times, penned by Ellen Peirson-Hagger.

The British edition of Backlight by Pirkko Saisio is about to hit the shelves and it has landed a glowing review right out of the gate: Ellen Peirson-Hagger has penned an enthusiastic review of the book on the Financial Times.

In it, she highlights the metatextuality of Saisio’s prose and her ability to build a prose that relies on feelings, rather than chronology, to move forward: “Throughout, Saisio writes as though looking through a haze brought on not simply by the passing of time, but by the understanding that it is our dreams and our preoccupations that point us towards the truth of our lives.”

Backlight is the second volume in the world-famous Helsinki Trilogy, that has made Saisio an instant modern classic across Europe and on the other side of the Atlantic. It follows teenage Saisio as she navigates puberty and spends a summer in Switzerland, studying German and living out her The Sound of Music-fantasies. The summer also brings reflections on her artistic future, and tumultuous events all over Europe. The British edition is out as a Penguin Modern Classic, in English translation by Mia Spangenberg, and hit the shelves on February 5th.

The trilogy, which follows Saisio from childhood to middle age, and from curious child to acclaimed artist on the backdrop of an ever-changing Helsinki, has been pre-empted after we picked it to our list in four areas: in Germany by Klett-Cotta, in France by Robert Laffont, in the Netherlands by De Geus, and most recently in the UK and Commonwealth by Penguin to their Penguin Modern Classics list, with Saisio being the first living Finnish author to join their list. The North American English rights have been acquired by Two Lines Press, in Hungary by Polar, in Czech Republic by Host and in Romania by Pandora M (of Editura Trei). 

Congratulations to the author, and don’t miss out on this title!

Stop the Thief! by Ulla Donner, A Dog Called Cat Says Farewell by Tomi Kontio & Elina Warsta, and Palestine and Israel. A History in Maps by Timo R. Stewart are running for the Most Beautiful Book of the Year Award.

The nominations keep rolling in for our beautiful list: Stop the Thief! by Ulla Donner, A Dog Called Cat Says Farewell by Tomi Kontio & Elina Warsta, and Palestine and Israel. A History in Maps by Timo R. Stewart are running for the Most Beautiful Book of the Year Award.  Most Beautiful Book of the Year Award.

Each year, the Finnish Book Art Committee selects the most beautiful books published in Finland during the previous year. One title is awarded as the Year’s Most Beautiful Book, and others, organised according to their categories, receive honorary mentions.

Stop the Thief!, penned and illustrated by Ulla Donner, and published by Schildts & Söderströms, is a humorous picture book in rhyme where a dog goes rogue and starts stealing other dogs’ most prized possessions, prompting a chaotic and furry thief hunt. Stop the Thief! is also running for the Runeberg Junior Prize.

A Dog Called Cat Says Farewell by Tomi Kontio & Elina Warsta is designed and illustrated by Elina Warsta, and published by Teos. It is the last chapter in the successful and critically acclaimed A Dog Called Cat series, and has won the Finlandia Junior Prize, the most prestigious children’s literature award in Finland, last autumn. A Dog Called Cat Says Farewell follows friends Cat, Dog, and Weasel as they say goodbye when Weasel embarks on his last journey.

Both titles are running in the children’s books category.

Running in the non-fiction category is Palestine and Israel. A History in Maps, by Timo R. Stewart, published by Gummerus and designed by Tuija Tarkiainen from Studio Kiss. In the book, two-times Finlandia nominee and PhD Timo R. Stewart uses a simple yet efficient structure to tackle a complex issue: over the course of the book, he analyzes 25 maps of the geographical area that encompasses Palestine and Israel, encouraging a critical approach to maps and historiography.

Who drew these maps, and with what purpose? Maps are a tool to understand the world, but also a tool of political power and history-making: our ideas of the world and national borders are far from being eternal and set in stone, and exploring their changes and development results in an unusual yet engaging way to approach history with more than skin-deep knowledge. The takeaway is an increased critical eye that can be turned to the different ways conflicts and politics shape the world we live in, in the Middle East and everywhere.

Congratulations to all nominees, authors, publishers, and graphic designers – and fingers crossed!