Author: Anastasia

Niina Mero’s successful debut The Death of Romance has now been sold to Calanish, who will publish the book in both Spanish and Catalan.

Calanish is a brand new imprint focusing on romance fiction from Obrador, an independent publisher based in Barcelona. The publisher, as it is stated on their website, desires to “awaken emotions and push them to the limit”, and is committed to doing it with “quality literature and captivating books”. No better home indeed for Mero’s book!

The Death of Romance has been praised, among other things, as “romantic entertainment to those who dread romantic entertainment”; published in 2019, it soon turned out to be the readers’ favourite. With close to 15,000 sold copies and glowing reviews, a new star had risen to the Finnish sky of commercial women’s fiction.

In the novel, Nora, the tattooed and very Finnish version of Bridget Jones, travels to Oxford to be soon swiped off her feet by the gothic atmosphere of Jane Eyre, the upper-class romance of Downton Abbey and the plotting and scheming known from British crime series. With no illusions about love but with masses of insight into English poetry, Nora soon stumbles on family secrets – and to her surprise also on English gentlemen who seem very able to distract her inquisitive mind.

The novel has been previously sold to Sekwa in Sweden, and strong interest from Germany and Central Europe assures us that more offers are coming soon.

Congratulations to the author!

We are so excited to share the news of two more foreign rights deals for Selja Ahava’s beautiful fourth novel The Woman Who Loved Insects: Colibri in Bulgaria and Relacja in Poland have just acquired the rights for the title.

Both houses have previously published Ahava’s EU Prize for Literature winner Things that Fall from the Sky (2015), sold to 25 foreign territories and also nominated for the Warwick Prize and shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. Colibri also published Ahava’s third novel Before My Husband Disappears (2017).

This is the 4th foreign rights deal for The Woman Who Loved Insects and it has also been optioned in France. The novel is a gentle, enchanting story of a woman fascinated by an unusual hobby: insects. Limited by narrow roles imposed on her by the time and society she lives in, the main protagonist starts looking for ways of finding her voice and authorship – eventually travelling through time and facing the big questions of existence and the origin of life.

As the major Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat put it: “The Woman Who Loved Insects is like a Japanese woodcut – gentle, exotic and slowly unfolding. It is enigmatic, and as such very, very fascinating.”

Congratulations to the author and her international readers!

This year’s winner of the Lapland Literature Prize, Juhani Karila’s wonderful novel Fishing for the Little Pike has now found a home in the Netherlands, as Koppernik just acquired the Dutch rights.

Koppernik is an independent publishing house based in Amsterdam with a strong, literary list of fiction and poetry titles from both the Netherlands and abroad. Among their authors is the Dublin Literary Award winner José Eduardo Agualusa, Daisy Johnson, as well as such world literature classics as Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov, James Joyce and others.

Publisher Chris de Jong immediately fell in love with Karila’s novel, calling it “at once odd and deeply funny”, and a “prefect match” for the Koppernik’s list.

This is the 7th foreign rights sale for the title, and it has also won numerous awards since its publication in 2019.

Don’t forget to check out our Literature from Finland podcast, episode MYTH, where Karila discussed myths in Finland and about Finland – and handled it so charmingly, that the episode even gained international attention.

Congratulations to the author!

Fantastic news has reached us from Reykjavík: the magical children’s novel Night Express, written by Karin Erlandsson and illustrated by Peter Bergting has been nominated for the most prestigious literary award in the Nordic countries, Nordic Council Children and Young People’s Literature Prize!

The jury stated about the book:

“The book is set in a magical dream world beyond space and time. It is an incredibly multifaceted story. It’s about what it’s like to miss someone, but it’s also about ageing and mental illness. The children try to understand the adult world and people’s sometimes complicated choices. As in Erlandsson’s earlier children’s books, the parents are often distanced from their children and preoccupied with their own agendas. The children are independent and perceptive and make sure to put everything right. With the help of fairy tale magic, anything is possible!“

Erlandsson has already been nominated for the prize three times: twice for the books in her fantastical The Song of the Eye Gemstone series (in 2017 and 2020 respectively) and for her debut novel Mink Kingdom (2015) she was nominated in the category of adult books.

This is not the first success for Night Express either: the title just won the prestigious Runeberg Junior Prize in February, and has now been sold to 4 territories.

The Nordic Council Children and Young People’s Literature Prize was first awarded in 2013. The prize was born out of the long-standing desire of the Nordic ministers for culture to strengthen and highlight literature for children and young people in the Nordic Region. The winner will be announced on the 2nd of November.

Congratulations to the author and fingers crossed! After all, you know what they say: third time’s a charm, and on the fourth you win everything.

“Correct, the government is ruled by women. Get over it,” tweeted Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin last Friday, in reaction to the new NATO report about the online harassment targeting Finland’s top ministers.

The world is still treating the female-lead government as somewhat of a utopia: in their new nonfiction The Women Who Run Finland, journalists Vappu Kaarenoja and Aurora Rämö explain how Finland made this utopia possible.

Now, HLA is thrilled to announce the first foreign rights deal for the title: German rights have been acquired by Scoventa.

The Women Who Run Finland takes the reader on a journey through the history of twentieth century Finland, showing how it shifted from being a country of “cashier girls” to one of the forerunners in the matters of gender and age equality.

The title is definitely among HLA nonfiction highlights this spring, that also include The Greatest Leap Forward, a new striking account on the Chinese surveillance system by Katarina Baer and Kalle Koponen, and It Happened to Us by Lea and Santeri Pakkanen, a father and daughter’s journey into the nightmares of their family in the Soviet Union.

Congratulations to the authors for the deal!