Author: Chiara Stanziani

Forest Field Notes by Venho & Pelliccioni continues to enchant Spain: the book will be a part of the Europa Illustra exhibition in Madrid next May.

Forest Field Notes by Johanna Venho & Sanna Pelliccioni (ill.) is out in Spanish in a beautiful edition by Gato Sueco, and will be featured in an upcoming exhibition in Madrid, Europa Ilustra, starting from May 9th, in which Pelliccioni will be representing Finland.

Forest Field Notes is a tender, magical story of the forest. It pays tribute to the imagination that can be awakened by nature. With Johanna Venho‘s poetic words and Sanna Pelliccioni‘s delicate illustrations, the book gently addresses the importance nearby nature has for children.

Spruce is a little girl who loves spending time in the forest, and is very observant: she sees trees, plants, flowers, but she has also seen elves, forest trolls, and fawns. All of her sightings and her experiences in the woods are collected in her field notebook.

One day she learns that her forest has been zoned, and will be cut down. Spruce decides to fight back, and starts tying notes to trees in protest. Suddenly, she finds an ally in a mysterious boy with green eyes and twigs in his hair. Who is the boy? And can they save the forest together?

In Finland, Forest Field Notes is published by Teos, and its foreign rights have already been sold in Oceania and Greece, as well as for World Spanish.

Forest Field Notes is followed by a second stand-alone book set in the same fictional universe, Travel Field Notes, in which Spruce and her family travel to Lapland by train to try and cheer up her mother, who has lost her job and slipped into depression. As she struggles and faces her difficulties, a hopeful ending is eventually in the cards, and Spruce documents everything in her field notebook, maintaining the same beautiful style of Forest Field Notes.

Don’t miss out on these titles!

The Dutch edition of Backlight by Pirkko Saisio is among the 12 nominees for the European Literature Prize in the Netherlands.

The Dutch edition of The Backlight by Pirkko Saisio, out with De Geus in translation by Annemarie Raas has been longlisted for the European Literature Prize in the Netherlands.

The prize has been awarded for 15 years and rewards the best foreign book in Dutch translation published in the past year. The 12 nominees on the longlist have been selected by booksellers in the Netherlands. A jury led by Niña Weijers will select a shortlist in June, and the winner will be announced on September 3rd. The prize amounts to 10,000 euros for the author and the translator, and was awarded last year to Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk and translator Karol Lesman for the novel The Empusion.

The European Literature Prize is an initiative of the Dutch Foundation for Literature, Academic-Cultural Centre SPUI25 , weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer and Athenaeum | Scheltema, with financial contribution by the Dutch Foundation for Literature. This year’s other nominees are:

– Memorial, 29 June by Tine Hoegh
– The Angel of Disappearance by Slobodan Šnajder
– There Are Rivers In The Sky by Elif Shafak
– Clear by Carys Davies
– I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness by Irene Solà
– Orbital, Samantha Harvey
– The Director by Daniel Kehlmann
– Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
– Judge on Trial by Ivan Klima
– Bad Habit by Alana S. Portero
– Watching Over Her by Jean-Baptiste Andrea

The Backlight is the second volume in Pirkko Saisio‘s world-famous Helsinki Trilogy, and it follows the protagonist during her adolescence. The book starts out in June 1968, a moment of turmoil for youth and students throughout Europe. A journey to Switzerland is a first taste of European life outside of Finland, but the protagonist is also faced with disappointments and increasing tensions between her leftist upbringing, Christianity, and her budding sexuality. Memories shape the present and the boundary between fact and fiction becomes fluid. At the same time, the work is a breath-takingly beautiful description of a young woman’s discovery of her true self.

Warm congratulations to the author, the publishers, and the translator – fingers crossed!

Finlandia winner Radio Popov by Anja Portin continues its international success: it is currently on exhibition at the Finnish Embassy & National Library for Children and Young Adults in Seoul, where it will stay until August 31. The Korean edition had been received favourably, and Radio Popov continues to do well in the country.

Radio Popov won the Finlandia Junior upon its release, and has already travelled to 25 language territories. Radio Popov follows Alfred, a nine-year-old boy who lives virtually alone. His mother is not in the picture and his father is constantly busy with work and business trips. During one of these business trips Alfred is left alone for so long he runs out of food, and electricity is cut off. When everything seems lost, Alfred is saved by a mysterious stranger who delivers food and woollen socks in lonely children’s letterboxes. It is the beginning of a wonderful adventure that will lead Alfred to a new family, and to saving more forgotten children. Alfred’s story is moving, and touches on social issues, but also contains joy, friendship, and a happy ending.

Anja Portin has quickly become a favourite among children’s authors with her middle grade novel Radio Popov. She writes about children who take matters into their own hands when grownups do not want to take responsibility or are not there to do it. 

An excerpt from Shadowmind by Harry Salmenniemi has been featured on The Point Magazine in English translation by Henri Antikainen.

Author Harry Salmenniemi debuted as novelist in 2023 with Shadowmind (Varjotajunta, Siltala 2023) with several collection of award-winning and warmly praised novella collections on his back.

In Shadowmind, Salmenniemi is about to embark on a train journey home. The shopping mall where he stops for coffee, the station, the platform and all the little, mundane details that come with the journey all shine with new light as the author focuses on them and reflects on the ordinary and the extraordinary things in his life. Combining style experimentations, autofiction, and reflections on contemporary life and society, Salmenniemi takes readers on a journey where modern culture is looked into, and smiled upon, with warmth. The novel was nominated for the Runeberg Prize, the second most prestigious award in the country.

The Point magazine is a thrice-yearly published literary magazine based in Chicago, Illinois. The magazine publishes essays, reviews, and articles on literature, culture, and the arts. The excerpt of Shadowmind published on The Point is translated by Henri Antikainen is titled Deep Breath. In it, the author and narrator is waiting for the train and grabs a coffee at a mall in Helsinki, and sinks deep into thoughts about both mundane and essential things.

You can find the whole excerpt here, and you can read more about Salmenniemi’s authorship here.

A Giraffe’s Heart Is Unbelievably Large by Sofia & Amanda Chanfreau has been awarded the Adomas Druktenis Prize for best translated book for the youth of the year by IBBY Lithuania.

The Lithuanian edition of A Giraffe’s Heart Is Unbelievably Large is out with Alma Littera, in translation by Mantas Karvelis. A Giraffe’s Heart Is Unbelievably Large is a stunning story by Sofia & Amanda Chanfreau, where magical realism meets the quest after one’s own origins.The book has been enchanting publishers all over the world since its release and, on top of having sold over 10.000 copies in Finland, it has also won the most important literary award in the country, the Finlandia Junior Prize, in 2022. This illustrated novel for middle grade readers is a tale of longing to be part of a family, to find one’s place in the world, and to be loved as one is. 

Whenever ten-year-old Vega, who has always lived with her father, tries to ask about her mother, the only answer she gets is mysteries. Once a not-so-nice girlfriend starts dating her father, and Vega gets an unexpected pen pal, she decides to set out on an adventure to find out more about her mother. The book is a superb read for a child alone or for parents and children together.

Congratulations to the authors and the publisher!