As Finland prepares to celebrate its Independence Day tomorrow, we are thrilled to announce that the award-winning and internationally bestselling author Johanna Sinisalo has been awarded the Pro Finlandia Medal for services to Finnish literature!

Founded in 1943, the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland is a distinction awarded by the President of Finland to artists and writers in recognition of their long meritorious work and exceptional services to Finnish art, drama, literature and music. Awarded just before Independence Day (December 6th) to 10-15 people across all fields of culture, the Pro Finlandia Medal is widely considered the highest national accolade for Finnish artists and writers.

One of the leading Finnish science fiction and fantasy authors, Johanna Sinisalo’s literary career spans five decades and her works include novels, short stories, radio, TV and comic book scripts. Her first novel, Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi (TROLL), was published in 2000 and received the coveted Finlandia Prize. Her works have since been translated into twenty languages.

In addition to the Finlandia Prize, Sinisalo has also won several literary prizes abroad, such as the 2004 James Tiptree, Jr. Award and the 2017 Prometheus Award, and was nominated for the Nebula Award in 2008, the Prix Escapades in 2012, and the Grand Prix de L’Imaginaire in 2017.

Huge congratulations to Johanna!

Below you can find some of Johanna’s amazing titles!

Troll

Johanna Sinisalo

Mikael, a young gay photographer, finds a small, man-like creature in the courtyard of his apartment block. It is a young troll, familiar from Scandinavian mythology: a demonic, wild beast. And it is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Supposedly extinct, today it is regarded as a hairy, cuddly toy by Nordic children. Mikael gives the troll a name, Pessi, and takes him home and hides him.

The first thing Mikael does is research everything he can about trolls on the internet, from folklore, nature journals, and newspaper clippings. Despite his studies, Mikael does not learn that trolls exude pheromones that smell like a Calvin Klein aftershave and that this has a profound aphrodisiac effect on all those around him. Shooting an assignment for an ultra-hip brand of jeans, Mikael finds himself fast-tracked into a dangerous liaison with Martes, the sexually ambivalent art director of the advertising agency concerned, while a couple of his friends in turn fall in love with him because he carries the troll’s scent.

What Mikael fails above all to learn, with tragic consequences, is that Pessi the troll is the interpreter of man’s darkest, most forbidden impulses.

Download the full English PDF here!

Blood of Angels

Johanna Sinisalo

“The queen is dead. The bees are gone. Thus, the world is about to end. But if you follow the bees, there are doors in the air. And a desperate man is ready to go through one.”

Albert Einstein is claimed to have said that if bees disappear from the earth, mankind has four years left to live. When mass bee-vanishings of unprecedented scope and devastation hit the United States, Orvo, a beekeeper, knows all too well where it will lead. And one day, when Orvo goes to check on his hives, he is forced to witness something he wishes he had never lived to see. The queen is dead. The epidemic has spread to Europe. The world is coming to an end.

The light of Orvo’s life is his son, Eero, whose secret animal activist existence Orvo discovers far too late. Eero’s activities as a defender of animal rights and an ardent opponent of Orvo’s inherited way of life propel the family into irreversible, gutwrenching conflict. Orvo takes a desperate step onto a path where only he and the bees know the way… This novel is a magical plunge into the myth of death and immortality, a tale of human blindness in the face of overwhelming choices and inevitabilities.

Download the full English PDF here!

The Core of the Sun

Johanna Sinisalo

Johanna Sinisalo tells the story of The Eusistocratic Republic of Finland in 2013. Her thriller-like story of flight and fight is also between the lines a feisty social polemic. How did Finland turn into the North Korea of Europe?

The Eusistocratic Republic of Finland has prioritized social stability and national health, and outlawed practically everything that might give one pleasure or cause addiction. Well, almost everything: the distribution of sex, an essential commodity of pleasure, is made as efficient as possible. In order to achieve this, the state has bred a new human subspecies: one that is receptive, submissive and always willing. They used to be called women.

Vanna and Jare become involved in buying and selling a stimulant known to be extremely dangerous: chili. Then Jare comes across a strange religious cult in possession of the Core of the Sun, a pungent chili that is too hot to handle.

Download the full English PDF here!

The Storm Flute

Johanna Sinisalo

Beauty comes in many forms—stunning, exciting, thrilling, perilous. Weather has all of them.

Predicting or altering the weather is the eternal dream of humanity. A merchant named Jonah, living in Assyria 600 years before the common era, gets caught in a storm. Is the storm a curse from God, or is it his own doing? In Finland in the 2010’s, Leena Lind loves her job as a meteorologist, but the activities of an aggressive finance company have her wasting her expertise at menial tasks. When her daughter Leia plays a game that involves making a video of a thunderstorm, Leena’s life is blown irretrievably off track and soon no one is safe anymore.

Download the materials for the title here!