Amazing news for authors Tomi Kontio, Marjo Niemi, and Jarkko Volanen, who are now running for this year’s Finlandia Prize.
The nominees for the biggest literary prize in Finland have been announced – and HLA is so proud to represent three of them!
Marjo Niemi and Jarkko Volanen are nominated for Finlandia Prize for fiction, and Tomi Kontio received a Finlandia Junior nomination for children’s literature. All three authors are published in Finland by Teos, an imprint of Siltala Publishing.
Finlandia Prize is the most important literary award in Finland given annually in three categories: the best adult fiction work; the best children’s or YA book; and the best nonfiction book of the year. The winner is always chosen out of 6 nominees in each category, and the award sum is 30,000 euros for each.
Marjo Niemi is nominated for her new novel A Low-Budget War Film – a sharp and darkly humorous study of class identity in what’s supposed to be the happiest country in the world.
In the novel, the narrator, who has long ago escaped to a big city, returns to her hometown after her father’s death. The town factory once offered the residents not only work and a livelihood, but also housing, school, daycare, healthcare, and hobbies. All that is left here now is a burned-down shopping centre and angst.
A Low-Budget War Film is not one of those working-class novels in which the spirit of the united grows into a collective force. Rather, with its ruthless directness, the novel shows how class identity is fragmented into individual pursuits, and the shame is inherited throughout generations.
Finlandia Jury has stated: A carnevalesque war campaign to the mind of a dead father and the history of one working class family. The milieu of a deprecating factory town points out that the Finnish class society is a materialistic, and tangible, reality. The writer’s language is absolutely of a caliber of its own: rough and jubilant. A cutting literary analysis of intergenerational trauma is by turns terrifying, by turns hilarious to read.
Niemi is no stranger to Finlandia Prize nominations: her previous novel, Hearing (2021), was a nominee too. She was also awarded the prestigious Runeberg Prize for The Mother of All Losses (2017). Among the most prominent themes in Niemi’s prose are questions of who gets to be heard, seen, and noticed, often punctuated with pungent, dark humor.
Jarkko Volanen is nominated for his third novel, Signal Fires – a deeply emotional story of terror, fictional identities, and the love that binds people together.
The novel follows two sets of characters that clash in the metropolis of an oppressive regime: brothers Viktor and Valdemar, and lovers Anna and Elena. Drawing inspiration from a true story of a couple seeking asylum in Finland on the basis of persecution for sexual orientation, and relying on atmospheres and plot twists worthy of a John Le Carré novel, Signal Fires explores in a page-turning narration the way in which individuals can escape authoritarian oppression to save the ones they love – or at least try.
Finlandia Jury has stated“A frighteningly realistic and topical portrayal of totalitarian regime, that shows how political persecution and structural violence damage individual people and their relationships. The narrative doesn’t try to indulge the reader; instead, it gives space for multi-layered characters and pressing themes. The prologue of the novel is one of the most impressive descriptions of a city in Finnish literature.”
Jarkko Volanen is a writer and a PhD researcher living in Helsinki. His second novel, The Shadow People (2020), was longlisted for the prestigious Runeberg Prize.
One of the six Finlandia Junior nominations for children’s and YA literature went to HLA author Tomi Kontio and his book A Dog Called Cat Says Farewell. The book completes the beloved Dog Called Cat series about a lovely dog called Cat, her human friend Weasel, and their cat companion called Dog.
The three friends have travelled together for five picture books, starting with A Dog Called Cat, published in 2015. The series were conjured together with the famous illustrator Elina Warsta. It tells a story of an unlikely friendship between lonely individuals. The series deals with accepting difference, seeing people without prejudice, and the importance of looking beyond the surface. The bittersweet, humorous books show life in all its guises. Even those of us with a rougher lot can experience joy and happiness.
The final book was published in a different format than the rest of the series, expanding into a short novel for middle-grade readers. In it, Dog and Cat say their farewells to Weasel.
Finlandia Junior Jury has stated: “An exceptionally beautifully written book about big, everlasting themes: grief, longing, love and friendship. Heavy as they may sound, the story helps to handle them with hope. It is deepened with warm illustrations of animal love and their point of view.”
The second book in the series, A Dog Called Cat Meets a Cat, was also nominated for Finlandia Junior Prize, in 2019.
Since 2010, at least one HLA author each year was nominated for Finlandia prize, and 8 of them ended up winning.
Winners in the category of the best novel include:
Iida Rauma (Destruction, 2022)
Anni Kytömäki (Margarita, 2020)
Juha Hurme (Headland, 2017)
Jukka Viikilä (Watercolours from a Seaside City, 2016)
Riikka Pelo (Our Earthly Life, 2013)
Ulla-Lena Lundberg (Ice, 2012)
Mikko Rimminen (Red Nose Day, 2010)
Pirkko Saisio (The Red Book of Farewells, 2003)
Kari Hotakainen (The Trench Road, 2002)
Past nominees for the prize include:
Helmi Kekkonen (Liv!, 2024)
Antti Hurskainen (A Wooden Prayer, 2023)
Marja Kyllönen (Undeparted, 2022)
Eeva Turunen (A Nice, Civilised Individual, 2022)
Matias Riikonen (Matara, 2021)
Marjo Niemi (Hearing, 2021)
Pirkko Saisio (Passion, 2021)
Mikko Rimminen (If It Looks Like It, 2019)
Pauliina Rauhala (Harvest, 2018)
Peter Sandström (Autumn Apples, 2016)
Selja Ahava (Things that Fall from the Sky, 2015)
Anni Kytömäki (Goldheart, 2014)
Jenni Linturi (For Fatherland, 2011)
Alexandra Salmela (27, or Death makes an Artist, 2010)
Finlandia Junior Prize has been previously awarded to 6 HLA authors:
Sofia & Amanda Chanfreau (Giraffes’s Heart Is Unbelievably Large, 2022)
Anja Portin (Radio Popov, 2020)
Marisha Rasi-Koskinen (The Dark Side of the Sun, 2019)
Sanna Mander (The Lost Key, 2017)
Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen (Light, Light, Light, 2011)
Tomi Kontio (Wings to the Other Side of the World, 2000)
Past nominees of the prize include
Ellen Strömberg (We’ll Just Ride Past, 2022)
Marisha Rasi-Koskinen (The Fallen, 2022)
Saara Kekäläinen & Reetta Niemensivu (Penelope and the Perilous Porridge, 2022)
Anssi & Maija Hurme (Shadowed, 2018)
Tomi Kontio & Elina Warsta (A Dog Called Cat Meets a Cat, 2019)
Warmest congratulations to the authors and the publisher, and fingers crossed!
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