News

One of the biggest highlights on HLA’s catalogue this season, novel Matara by the young rising star Matias Riikonen, has been awarded the prestigious Torch-Bearer Prize!

The Torch-Bearer Prize is given yearly to a title considered to have the most potential to succeed outside Finland.

The jury has stated about the novel:

“In Matara, all the opportunities that fiction provides are used in full. The deeper the reader dives into the seemingly real world of the novel, the more dream-like it feels. Children talk just like grown-ups; the neighbourhood forest proves to be an endless wilderness. A completely new world is born with its own rules and laws, possessing a tremendous immersive power.”

Matara is a story about boys’ games gone an inch too seriously. In the novel, boys of a summer camp spend their days in the realm they have built: the Republic of Matara. It has a law, a societal structure, plotting for power and bonds between citizens, as any real state. Under the guidance of his older brother, a young boy trains to be a scout. While spying, the pair come upon an enemy camp: war is at hand.

The novel was also nominated for the most prestigious literary award in the country, Finlandia Prize.

HLA’s authors have been awarded the prize for the two previous years in a row: Minna Rytisalo received it for her novel Mrs C. in 2019, and last year, the winner was Marisha Rasi-Koskinen’s Lynchian masterpiece REC. In 2015, the prize was given to another HLA author, Finlandia Prize winner Anni Kytömäki for her debut novel Goldheart.

Our series of short interviews continue! Read the breathtaking one with Matias Riikonen, the author of this autumn’s literary event, the novel Matara, now nominated for the biggest award of the year, Finlandia Prize. Children’s games gone too serious, inspirations from Plato to Finnish soldiers of the 1930s, finding literary voice and many more fascinating thoughts. An of course, the cherry on the top – the beloved questionnaire! Read the interview here.

Our short interviews are back! Meet Sari Rainio & Juha Rautaheimo, the authors of the new, exciting and a pinch nostalgic detective series Mortuí non silent and its first part, The Dead Still Speak. The authors discuss the main ideas behind the series, their love for Helsinki and the respect for the dead characters. And of course, the cherry on the top – the beloved questionnaire! Read the interview here.

Our Little Pike has reached the peak of its world domination: the fantastic novel, dubbed as the “bomb” and a “formidable punk fairytale”, written by Juhani Karila, has now been sold to the English world. The publisher in the USA and Canada is Restless Books, in Great Britain and the Commonwealth is Pushkin Press.

Restless Books is an independent, nonprofit house devoted to ”championing essential voices from around the world whose stories speak to us across linguistic and cultural borders”, in the words of the publisher.

Pushkin Press is a publisher based in Great Britain, interested in everything from timeless classics to the urgent and contemporary. Pushkin Press has published some of the twentieth century’s most widely acclaimed and brilliant authors who have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the International Booker Prize, and even won the Nobel Prize.

Fishing for the Little Pike has been recently published in French, in translation by Claire Saint-Germain, and was met with raging reviews, comparing the novel to Shakespeare, Arto Paasilinna, Rabelais and Cervantes. The novel is now nominated for Prix Micheline, a booksellers’ prize for the best literary debut.

English is the 12th foreign rights territory for Karila’s novel, the previous deals including

World Arabic, Al Arabi
Denmark, Jensen & Dalgaard
Dutch, Koppernik
Estonia, Hea Lugu
World French, La Peuplade
Germany, Homunculus
Hebrew, Locus
Hungary, Metropolis Media
Poland, Marpress
Russia, Livebooks
Turkey, İthaki

Congratulations to the author! Don’t forget to tune in Literature from Finland podcast episode MYTH, where Karila discussed myths from and about Finland.

Award season is in full swing in Finland, and nominations keep pouring in. Just last week, we announced our nominees for the most important literary award of the year, Finlandia Prize.

Now we are extremely thrilled to announce that the beautiful picture book Matias and Everything that Was Far Away, written by Anja Portin and illustrated by Sanna Pelliccioni, is nominated for the Runeberg Junior Prize. The prize is given yearly in two categories – adult fiction and children’s literature – and is often considered to be the most important literary award after Finlandia.

Matias and Everything that Was Far Away is a poignantly beautiful story about human curiosity and longing. Anja Portin was last year’s Finlandia Junior Prize winner; for this book, she was inspired by the astronomical magic-lantern pictures made by her great-grandfather in the early 20th century. Sanna Pelliccioni is a versatile artist who has illustrated dozens of children’s books; in the book about Matias, she conjures up magical images from some of these enchanting old slides.

The winners are traditionally announced on the 5th of February, the National Runeberg Day.

Congratulations to the authors!