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Each year, Finnish bloggers and bookgrammers organize their own voting and choose the best book of the year. The clear favourite of 2020 was Anni Kytömäki’s Finlandia winner Margarita!

The participants can only vote for the books that they have written about in their blog or Instagram posts, and each can give points (3, 2 and 1) to three books respectively.

The bloggers shared their impressions:

”Could someone please give Anni Kytömäki the Nobel, the Booker, the Pulitzer Prize or something? I think they should, because Finlandia [Prize] is way too small for Anni. Each of her books is better than the previous one, and that’s why I’m not sure if I should give Margarita the full five stars: what if the next one is even better? I don’t know how it would be possible, but Anni probably knows.”
– Heidin kuvanurkka on Instagram

”Margarita fully deserves winning Finlandia Prize: the end result is well controlled, the language is stunningly beautiful, the storylines are skilfully written, making the book a simply wonderful reading experience.”
– Kirsin Book Club blog

Kytömäki also won the Blogistania Finlandia in 2014, for her debut novel Goldheart, recently sold to Rue de l’échiquier in France. Margarita was recently sold to Estonia and Hungary, and an offer from Lithuania is on the table.

Another HLA title, REC by Marisha Rasi-Koskinen ended up third in this year’s Blogistania Finlandia vote. Recently awarded the second most prestigious literary award in the country, the Runeberg Prize, and also the Torch-Bearer Prize not long ago, REC was described by the bloggers:

”How would I picture REC? Enchanting, different, mysterious, multilayered, deep, surprising – all the words that, in the end, don’t even come close to describing this baffling, but at the same time, easily approachable and interesting novel. My words are not enough to tell you where Marisha Rasi-Koskinen manages to take you with hers – somewhere beyond the visible reality.”
– Kirsin Book Club blog

Rasi-Koskinen’s novel has been recently sold to Jensen & Dalgaard in Denmark.

Congratulations to the authors!

Kari Hotakainen’s #1 bestselling Story has been acquired by Dybbuk in the Czech Republic, Polar in Hungary and Petergailis in Latvia.

The number 1 bestseller with over 30,000 copies sold between mid-August 2020 and January 2021, Kari Hotakainen’s Story has been previously sold to Iperborea in Italy.

Kari Hotakainen has been awarded for his previous works with the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize, Finland’s biggest literary award the Finlandia Prize, the Prix du Courrier International and the Prix Coup du Coeur, amongst others. His first nonfiction book, The Unknown Kimi Räikkönen (2018) is the best-selling Finnish nonfiction work of all times with over 200,000 sold copies in Finland and over 100,000 abroad. 

Story has been described as slyly moving and wildly funny; in it, the countryside has been turned into a Recreation Area, and everyone has been made to live in the City. As there is not enough housing for everyone, a brutal playoff begins. Who can tell the most attractive story and make their lives seem interesting and get an apartment?

Jensen & Dalgaard in Denmark have acquired the rights of Marisha Rasi-Koskinen’s novel REC, awarded a week ago on Friday with Runeberg Prize.

REC, praised by readers and critics alike, is an atmospheric, post-modern dive into the fragmented reality we are living today. When teenager Lucas meets a peculiar boy named Cole, it is a start of a decades-long on-and-off friendship. In the story, real and fictional characters are present simultaneously, images and stories begin many times and in many places, and dark, possessive and manipulating side of people take over with irrevocable outcome – unless… nothing is true.

Jensen & Dalgaard is a Danish publisher with a strong list of quality fiction. From Finland, they are the publisher of Selja Ahava, Anu Kaaja, Juhani Karila, Leena Krohn, and several others.

Marisha Rasi-Koskinen has written six works of fiction. She has been awarded with the Finlandia Junior Prize, and for REC with the Torch-Bearer Prize and the Runeberg Prize.

Anni Kytömäki’s Finlandia Prize winning novel Margarita is gaining a lot of attention abroad. The rights have been sold to Estonia and Hungary, optioned in France, and an offer from Lithuania is on the table.

Anni Kytömäki’s bestselling debut novel Goldheart (2014) has been sold to France to Rue de l’échiquier, who has also optioned Kytömäki’s second novel Stone Weaver (2017) and the recent Margarita (2020).

At the moment, there is also an Lithuanian offer for Margarita on the table.

The rights of Margarita have previously been sold to Estonia (Ühinenud ajakirjad) and Hungary (Polar). Bestseller #1 in Finland with so far over 55,000 copies sold in Finland, Margarita is gaining a lot of international attention.

The novel, set in 50s Finland, is a page-turning, stunningly topical story in which the fates of people intertwine in an era when the relationship between people and nature start to change. With similarities to such recent successes as Delia Owen’s Where the Crawdads Sing and Richard Powers’ Overstory, Margarita writes the people as inseparable parts of the nature surrounding us.

The author’s debut novel Goldheart  (2015) was nominated for the Finlandia Prize and Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, and it was awarded Gummerus’ Kaarle Prize. Goldheart, a bestseller in Finland, also received the Torch-Bearer Prize, and it won the bloggers’ best book of the year award, Blogistanian Finlandia. In 2017, Kytömäki published the critically acclaimed Stone Weaver, which went straight to #3 on the bestseller list when it came out.

HLA is very proud to become a foreign rights representative for the young star of graphic novels, Ulla Donner, and immediately announce three foreign rights deals for her works!

Centrala has now acquired Czech, World English and Polish rights for Donner’s acclaimed graphic novels Crap (2019) and Spleenish (2017).

Donner (b. 1988) is a Swedish-speaking Finnish illustrator, cartoonist and a graphic designer. Spleenish was awarded the Stipend of the Swedish-Speaking Finnish Society of Authors, in addition to the The Most Beautiful Book award and a nomination to the Finlandia Prize for the best graphic novel. Her second graphic novel Crap was a critical success and the winner of the Finlandia prize for the best Finnish graphic novel.

Centrala is a publishing house specialising in comics; originally based in Poland, they now also operate in Berlin and London. As the publisher states on its website: “For us, comics means beautifully published, well written, and exceptionally drawn literature – a picture of life in a solid frame.” No better home for Donner’s exceptional work!

Congratulations to the author!