Before the Birds by Merja Mäki is running for the Charleston Prize in France, with the winners being announced in late June.
The French edition of Before the Birds by Merja Mäki, in translation by Fantine Brunel, is running for the Charleston Prize in France.
The Charleston Prize – Prix Charleston – was established by the publishing house Charleston in 2018. The winners are selected among 8 novels (4 French and 4 translated) from which readers can vote for two novels in each category. Booksellers then choose the winners, one per category, out of the novels selected by readers. Mäki is in very good company, with other nominees being Kim Michele Richardson, Corina Bomann, and Tan Twan Eng for translated fiction and Camille Anseaume, Sandra Martineau, Gabrielle Blanchout and Charlie Wat for French fiction.
Before the Birds tells the story of Alli, a young girl from Karelia forced to flee her home when Winter War breaks out in 1939. The novel was awarded the Torch-bearer Prize and was a finalist for the Des Racines et des Mots Prize in France. After Before the Birds Mäki published Wept Another, which is also set in Karelia in wartime and is set in the same fictional universe. Both titles have received great praise for their ability to portray the emotional lives of people in wartime and for the warmth and sense of hope they convey, despite the difficult subject. Before the Birds and Wept Another have sold about 50.000 copies altogether, and a third novel is due next year.
Warmest congratulations to the author, and fingers crossed!