Finnish Novel Wins Top Literary Prize and New Sales
Oneiron by Laura Lindstedt (author of Scissors, 2007) won this year's Finlandia Prize, Finland's most prestigious literary honor. The book is represented by the Elina Ahlback Literary Agency and was originally published by Teos in August. Since the announcement, rights have sold to Rosinante in Denmark, adding to previous deals made in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Lithuania. In the novel, seven women meet in an undefined space seconds after their deaths. Ahlback says the author "plays with genres, transitioning from humor to rage—while asking her reader to contemplate the mystifying question of death’s inevitability."
New book by Bestselling Author & Dionysos Singer Mathias Malzieu Gains Sales Abroad
After 17 years as fiction editor at French publishing house Flammarion, Olivia De Dieuleveult founded the Dieuleveult Agency in October, and her first project is Journal d'un Vampire En Pyjama (Diary of a Vampire in Pajamas) by Mathias Malzieu, author of the bestseller The Boy with a Cuckoo-Clock Heart and the singer of French pop group Dionysos. Compared to Jean-Dominique Bauby’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the book is described as a "memoir of life and death." Albin Michel won French rights, at auction, and will publish with a first print run of 50,000 copies. International rights have sold so far to Penguin Random House (Spain and world Spanish), Feltrinelli (Italy), Penguin Random House (Germany), with world English rights to Katy Follain at Quercus.
German Bestseller Sells in The Netherlands
Sophia, Death and I by Thees Uhlmann has been on Germany's Spiegel bestseller list since its October publication, and rights have sold in The Netherlands, in the first translation sale for the book. In the book, Death appears outside the narrator's door only to discover he cannot kill the narrator. Instead, Death and the narrator go on a road trip, along with the narrator's ex-girlfriend, Sophia, where they search for his mother and seven-year-old son, whom he hasn't seen in a long time. Rights are controlled by Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch of Germany.
Nigerian Author's Debut Sells in France
Stillborn by Diekoye Oyeyinka has sold in France to Éditions de l'Aube. Stillborn was originally published in Kenya last year by East African Educational Publishers. Rights are controlled by the Pontas Literary & Film Agency. The book is about five Nigerians and how their lives intersect during the time when Nigeria was given independence.
Spanish Bestseller Optioned For Film
In film news, the Spanish bestseller, This Too Shall Pass by Milena Busquets, has been optioned by Daniel Burman of the Burman Office, best known for being co-producer of The Motorcycle Diaries. The deal was brokered by the Pontas Literary & Film Agency, and the agency says a prominent scriptwriter-director will be announced soon. The book was originally published by Anagrama in Spain, and translation rights have sold to 32 publishers, including Hogarth in the U.S.
