Finland Prize 2013 for Salla Simukka

Posted on 17.12.201311.08.2016

We are thrilled to announce that Salla Simukka has received the Finland Prize 2013. The Minister of Culture, Mr. Paavo Arhinmäki awarded the Finland Prize to seven accomplished artists in Helsinki yesterday. Established in 1993, the Finland Prize is worth 26.000 euros and is awarded in recognition of a significant career in arts, an exceptional artistic achievement, or a promising breakthrough.

The Finland Prize jury’s motivations:

Salla Simukka is a Finnish writer and translator, who also works as a literary critic for the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat and the weekly Suomen Kuvalehti and as an associate editor at a literary publication for young people, Lukufiilis. She has studied Nordic Philology, Finnish Language, Comparative Literature, Creative Writing and Women’s Studies at the University of Turku.

Published in 2002, Simukka’s debut, the youth novel When Angels Look Away (Kun enkelit katsovat muualle, WSOY 2002) is a love story between two teenage girls. Her novels Without a Trace (Jäljellä, Tammi 2012) and Elsewhere (Toisaalla, Tammi 2012) are a dystopia set in the near future in a world where being ordinary counts for nothing. For this pair of books, Salla Simukka was awarded the 2012 Topelius Prize.

Salla Simukka made her exceptionally strong international breakthrough with her Snow White Trilogy, YA thrillers starring Lumikki Andersson. The opening of the series, As Red as Blood (Punainen kuin veri, Tammi 2013), was released in Finland in Spring 2013, with the second part, As White as Snow (Valkea kuin lumi, Tammi 2013), following hot on the heels in Fall 2013. The rights to the trilogy have been sold in 37 territories worldwide. No other Finnish author has achieved such success before.

RIGHTS SOLD in 37 territories:

ALBANIA, Botime B-Books
ARAB WORLD, Arab Scientific
BELGIUM, Clavis
BRAZIL, Novo Conceito
BULGARIA, Egmont
CATALAN, La Galera
CHINA, Modern Press
CROATIA, Znanje
CZECH, Egmont
DENMARK, Gyldendal
ESTONIA, Pegasus
FRANCE, Hachette Livre
GEORGIA, Bakur Sulakauri
GERMANY, Arena
GREECE, Metaichmio
HUNGARY, Athenaeum
ICELAND, Forlagid
INDONESIA, Kompas Gramedia/Bhuana Ilmu Populer
ISRAEL, Yedioth
ITALY, Mondadori
KOREA, Gimm Young
LATVIA, Zvaigzne
LITHUANIA, Alma Littera
NETHERLANDS, Clavis
NORWAY, Gyldendal
POLAND, Foksal/WAB
PORTUGAL, Presença
ROMANIA, Trei
RUSSIA, Eksmo
SERBIA, Vulkan
SLOVENIA, Mladinska
SPAIN, La Galera
SWEDEN, Rabén & Sjögren
TAIWAN, Emily Publishing
TURKEY, Altin Kitaplar
UK, Hot Key Books
US, Amazon Publishing/Skyscape
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi

Reading material:
In English, German and Italian.

World rights and enquiries:
Elina Ahlbäck, Literary Agent – Elina@ahlbackagency.com – tel. + 358 400 548 402

About author

Salla Simukka

Salla Simukka is the author of the international success story The Snow White Trilogy: rights are sold in 52 territories and in Hollywood. She has written several novels for young readers and her accolades include the Topelius Prize 2013 and the Finland Prize 2013. Simukka has been nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award every year 2021–2024. Where It All Begins, published in 2022, is her first novel for adults and in 2024 she started a collaboration with JP Ahonen on a middle grade novel.

Previously Simukka has written book reviews for the newspapers, translated all kinds of texts into Finnish, worked as an editor at a literary magazine and as a screenwriter for a popular TV show for young audiences. She has also been working on the programme of Turku Book Fair in 2017–2020.

Bibliography

2024, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

The Secret Staircase

Salla Simukka

2022, Literary Fiction

Where It All Begins

Salla Simukka

2021, Young Adult (13 or 14+)

In the Dark I Can Be Yours

Salla Simukka

2020, Young Adult (13 or 14+)

Detained

Salla Simukka

2018, Young Adult (13 or 14+)

Turn off the Lights! Turn on the Lights!

Salla Simukka

2016, Middle Grade (8-12 Years)

Sisterland

Salla Simukka

2014, Young Adult (13 or 14+)

As Black as Ebony

Salla Simukka

2013, Young Adult (13 or 14+)

As Red as Blood

Salla Simukka

2013, Young Adult (13 or 14+)

As White as Snow

Salla Simukka

2012, Young Adult (13 or 14+)

Elsewhere

Salla Simukka

2012, Young Adult (13 or 14+)

Without a Trace

Salla Simukka

Polish rights to LAURA and two other novels in the Palokaski crime series sold to Literackie

Posted on 13.12.201311.08.2016

We are thrilled to announce that the Polish rights of J.K. Johansson’s thrillers Laura, Noora and Venla have been sold to Literackie for publication in 2014-16. Translation rights have previously been sold in German (Suhrkamp), Dutch (The House of Books) and Greek (Kedros). TV and film rights were acquired by Nordisk Film TV Finland / Matila Röhr Nordisk.

“J.K. Johansson has written an intriguing novel. The plot and the psychology behind the disappearance of Laura is so very cleverly put together that reading this first book in a series of three will definitely raise your appetite for the two following books. We are thrilled to publish this series.” – Ilonka Reintjens, The House of Books

“A small town. A missing girl. A secret that grows deeper the more is unveiled. LAURA is electrifying, and we are thrilled to publish this wonderful book as first part of a series that will be a treat for fans of Nordic crime fiction.”
– Susanne Gretter, Suhrkamp

What happened to Laura Anderson?
Twin Peaks meets Nordic Crime! A tense psychological thriller and an amusing relationship drama in an internet-dominated society.

Book 1 Laura was published in Finland by Tammi Publishers in March 2013 to great reviews and excellent sales. Laura Anderson is a high school student and is very much missing. Mia is a not-quite-forty former internet cop trying to break her Facebook addiction. Nikke is her brother, a broad-minded school psychologist. When Laura’s parents start a Facebook page to try and find her daughter, they open up a Pandora’s box. Laura is an intelligent and entertaining book. A reader feels fondness for its characters like one does for friends or family members – lovable and infuriating, impossible to put aside.

Book 2 Noora is lonely: she has no friends at school, on Facebook, or anywhere else for that matter. She has intently followed the case and is prepared to do just about anything for a fraction of the attention Laura received. Before long Noora comes up with a plan, and to the town’s horror and the tabloids’ delight, she disappears. Has tragedy struck again?

Book 3 Venla‘s case is the undercurrent in all the parts of the series. The disappearance of Venla, Mia and Nikke’s sister, left its mark on the whole family. Their father died a couple of years later in a car crash and the mother looked for refuge in religion, which alienated Mia and Nikke from her and turned the two of them into a close-knit family unit. Will Venla’s mystery be finally revealed?

Book 2 Noora in the Palokaski series will be published in Finland in March 2014 and Book 3 Venla in March 2015. Please request synopses and other reading material in English, German, Italian and Finnish!

About the author:
J. K. Johansson is the pen name of a group of professional storytellers. Johansson loves Nordic crime novels, HBO series, well-written sex scenes, and reading the book before seeing the movie.

World rights and enquiries:
Elina Ahlbäck, Literary Agent – Elina@ahlbackagency.com – tel. +358 400 548 402

About author

J. K. Johansson

J. K. Johansson is the pen name of a group of professional storytellers. Johansson loves Nordic crime novels, HBO series, well-written sex scenes, and reading the book before seeing the movie. The Palokaski Trilogy, set in a suburb near Helsinki, is a tense psychological thriller and a tangled relationship and family drama in an internet-dominated society.

2015, Crime & Suspense

Venla

J. K. Johansson

2014, Crime & Suspense

Noora

J. K. Johansson

2013, Crime & Suspense

Laura

J. K. Johansson

Elina Ahlbäck Literary Agency to open an office in New York

Posted on 29.11.2013

Elina Ahlbäck Literary Agency will expand to New York in the summer of 2014. Elina Ahlbäck will open a New York office with Laura Palotie (MA in journalism), who will be starting as an agent at the Agency’s Helsinki office on January 3, 2014.

”It is essential for us to be located close to our customers and clients in the United States, selling rights to the works of our Finnish authors and collaborating with our U.S clients from our office in New York”, says literary agent Elina Ahlbäck. She was in New York last week with the author Leena Lehtolainen, visiting U.S editors and marketing Lehtolainen’s Maria Kallio crime novels Copper Heart, Her Enemy and My First Murder.

Next year, several books by Finnish authors will be published in the United States, including Snow Woman (Luminainen, Tammi 1996), the fourth novel in Leena Lehtolainen’s internationally acclaimed Maria Kallio Mystery Series, and the first entry in the Bodyguard Trilogy, The Bodyguard (Henkivartija, Tammi 2009), by the same author. Other forthcoming books include Salla Simukka’s As Red As Blood (Punainen kuin veri, Tammi 2013), the first entry in the massively successful Snow White Trilogy, for which translation rights have already been sold in 37 territories, and Emmi Itäranta’s award-winning debut Memory of Water (Teemestarin kirja, Teos 2012). English editions of The Life and Art of Tove Jansson (Tove Jansson – Tee työtä ja rakasta, Tammi 2013) by Tuula Karjalainen and The Blood of Angels (Enkelten verta, Teos 2011) by the award-winning author Johanna Sinisalo will be published in the fall of 2014.

In the Agency’s Helsinki office, Elina Ahlbäck and agents Päivi Ruottinen and Melanie Schmitt will continue selling foreign rights in fiction, children’s books and non-fiction to publishers around the world on behalf of its clients including Tammi Publishers, Rovio Entertainment and North American publishers Amazon, Little Brown, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and several others. See a full list of clients here:

Authors: http://www.ahlbackagency.com/authors/

Publishers & Agents: http://www.ahlbackagency.com/publishers-agents/

For further information and rights enquiries contact:

Elina Ahlbäck, Literary Agent, CEO – Elina@ahlbackagency.com – tel. + 358 400 548 402