Elina Hirvonen

We are extremely happy to announce that Naklada Ljevak has acquired the Croatian rights for Johanna Sinisalo’s novel BLOOD OF ANGELS and Elina Hirvonen’s novel WHEN TIME RUNS OUT.

Finnish literature is conquering Croatia! Another prestigious publishing house in Croatia, Mala Zvona, has acquired the Croatian rights to Tiina Raevaara’s Runeberg Prize-winning novella collection I DON’T FEEL YOU BY MY SIDE. The deals were closed by Sten-Erik Tammemäe at Elina Ahlback Literary Agency.

Naklada Ljevak praised both BLOOD OF ANGELS and WHEN TIME RUNS OUT:

Naklada Ljevak decided to publish the novel BLOOD OF ANGELS by award-winning Finnish author Johanna Sinisalo because its subject – environmental disaster caused by annihilation of the bees – becomes an increasingly urgent problem and because of the highest literary value of the novel that combines ecological warning, mythological themes and human relationships.

Naklada Ljevak is proud to announce publishing the Croatian edition of the haunting eco-thriller and psychological drama WHEN TIME RUNS OUT by one of the most esteemed Finnish writers, Elina Hirvonen. The timely and universal theme of the relationship within a family set against the backdrop of climate crisis will surely resonate with Croatian readers.
– Nada Brnardic, Editor, Naklada Ljevak, Croatia

BLOOD OF ANGELS
ENKELTEN VERTA
by Johanna Sinisalo
Teos, 2011, 275 pp.

“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!

WHEN TIME RUNS OUT
KUN AIKA LOPPUU
by Elina Hirvonen
WSOY, 2015, 256 pp.

Helsinki, less than a decade in the future. Laura Anttila is lecturing at the university on climate change, hope, and the responsibility of humans. In the hallway, she is confronted by two police officers.

Laura’s daughter Aava encounters a woman who has just lost her daughter in a Somalian village. Having returned to her apartment, Laura hears that someone is shooting at people from the rooftop of the Lasipalatsi building in Helsinki.

When Time Runs Out is a powerful novel about parenthood, about finding your place, and about the responsibility of people to intervene in the course of events. Hirvonen wakes the reader to ponder what climate change and the lack of clean water can entail for humans in the future.

Download materials here!

I DON’T FEEL YOU BY MY SIDE
EN TUNNE SINUA VIERELLÄNI
by Tiina Raevaara
Teos, 2010, 260 pp.

A young man is looking for his fate while observing dragonflies, an unknown something takes the life of Matilda, and Mr. Gordon ends up in a birds’ hospital.

Tiina Raevaara’s I DON’T FEEL YOU BY MY SIDE is a novella collection, the texts of which, veering into the surreal, take the reader on a journey to the confluences of man and nature, dreams and subconsciousness, the circle of death and life. In this collection of 14 novellas, Raevaara shines the spotlight on the human mind and the forces tearing through its realities. The feelings of alienation and longing combine with a clear language and different narrators, each of whom wants to connect with themselves or someone next to them before it’s too late.

Request materials here!