Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Helsinki, Finland at the invitation of the . FILI invited fourteen editors, from Tawain to the UK to the US, to attend a few lectures on the Finnish Publishing scene, meet with individual publishers and agents, and generally soak up the publishing atmosphere in Helsinki.

The first morning was taken up with two lectures, the first by Sakari Laiho, the director of the Finnish Book Publishers Association. The organization was founded in 1858—much of Finnish publishing seems to have gotten its start around this time—and they currently represent 103 publishers. These 103 publishers account for 80% of the commercial books printed in Finland and 90% of the revenue. Some facts and figures from his lecture:

• Books account for €300 million in sales/year
• 10% of that is domestic fiction
• 77% of Finns buy a book in a year
• 16% of Finns buy more than ten books a year
• That 16% accounts for 54% of the books sold
• Two book chains account for 80% of the market
• The average print run is around 2000 copies
• Sofi Oksanen’s sold 160,000(!) copies (There are around five million Finns.)

The most interesting tidbit from this lecture was about ‘sample stock’. In Finland, every publisher sends one copy of each book they publish to every bookstore. The bookstores agree to keep that book in their store for one or two years. If that copy is sold, they agree to order a replacement copy and so on. If it isn’t sold in that time, they return it to the publisher. This is a fantastic, if not universally exportable, idea.

The next lecture was by the director of the (the above photo is of their flagship store in Helsinki), Annamari Arrakoski-Engardt. Academic is the largest book chain in Finland; they have seven shops and account for 10% of the market (I’m not sure how these numbers square with the numbers of the last lecture). Some facts and figures from her lecture:

• Academic Bookshop sold €562 million in books in 2008
• In 2008, 13,419 books were published (I love how exact that number is)
• 10,515 were in Finnish
• 627 were in Swedish (There’s a large minority Swedish population in western Finland, around 5-6% of Finns are Finnish-Swedish)
• 2,277 were in translation (A healthy 17%)
• In 1965, there were 788 book shops
• In 1972, they abolished the fixed price law (each bookstore sells the same book at the same price)
• In 1975, there were 603 book shops
• Today there are 296
• Academic’s flagship store is 3000 square meters and houses 100,000 books
• Academic buys from 10,000 (!!!) publishers worldwide

The above photo is of the ceiling of the Academic Bookshop. It’s a beautiful space. This whole building was purpose-designed for books by the Finnish architect and designer . The shop also has a café, Café Aalto, on the second floor, where I spent hours and hours; their espresso is really good and they have these fantastic sweet croissant things that I could eat by the dozen.

After the lectures were done, each of the editors had scheduled individual meetings with all of the publishers. I ended up having ten meetings altogether, which seemed to give me a pretty good overview of everything that is going on there—well, as much as can be gleaned in three days without the ability to speak or read a single word of Finnish. But I met with the biggest publishers, like and , and newer publishers, like , and heard about the authors they’re excited about; that’s one of the really great things about working for Open Letter, by the way. We do different kinds of books here (My favorite story so far is when a publisher was going to tell us about two books: one, a more commercial author, they thought would sell 10,000 copies in the US, and the other, a more literary author, who was wonderful but who they thought would sell 1,000. Chad and I both said at the same time, “Tell us about the 1000 copy guy.”), and because we do a special kind of book, I feel like we have different kinds of meetings with publishers. There’s a common sort of lament in publishing, and I heard it in Finland too, that publishing used to be different before the money guys got involved. People are usually in publishing for the same reason—it feels like you’re a part of something a little romantic in a world without much magic left in it—but one tends to spend most of one’s time outside of that romantic space, worrying about sales, or having hour-long discussions about books written by wrestlers. We have maybe a bit more access to that romantic space than most (thank you, �����Թ�), and so in our meetings those worries tend to disappear, which, in the end, makes for a much better meeting. I get to say, “Just tell me about who you love.” And that’s a lot of fun.

Anyway, the above photo is from the ‘cash desk’ at Otava. In the old days, authors would come by Otava once a week to pick up the money from their sales. Finland’s only Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Frans Eemil Sillanpää, used to come by here, until it was decided that it might be better for his wife to come instead.

On the last day of the trip, we were invited to a luncheon at the . Also at the luncheon were the nine members of a translation symposium on the work of , fourteen translators who were taking part in a beginning translation seminar, and numerous members of the Finnish publishing community, many of whom we had had the privilege to meet. The above photo is of FILI’s director, the lovely, thoughtful, intelligent, and multi-lingual (I think I heard her speak at least five different languages when I was there) Iris Schwanck, who delivered a moving lecture to cap the trip.

Thanks to Iris and everyone at FILI, and everyone in Finland who was kind enough to take the time out of their busy schedules to meet with me, for an absolute gem of a week.

Don’t forget to check out FILI’s literary journal, and, if you’re going to Frankfurt, try to catch up with Iris and the FILI team.

First off, it was earlier this week that Finland will be the 2014 Guest of Honor. From the press release:

Finland is known for its literary export of children’s books – for example, Tove Jansson’s “Finn Family Moomintroll” – and of mystery novels, including authors like Pentti Kirstilä, Matti Y. Joensuu, Outi Pakkanen or Taavi Soininvaara. Authors like Kari Hotakainen, Anja Snellmann or Arto Paasilinna have also managed to make the leap into the international publishing world – their most important works are also available in German translation.

For more information about Finnish literature, I highly recommend checking our the online journal We’ve written about this before, but honestly, this is the best place to find samples, read reviews of Finnish works, etc. Also, although it’s not exclusively Finnish, the blog is a fantastic source for information and sample translations. (Especially sample translations.)

For more information about China, this year’s Guest of Honor, the Frankfurt Book Fair put together very handy overview of the Chinese book market, which includes and

*

And on a slightly different note, the application information for the international bookseller’s program is I personally think this sounds really interesting:

The international programme provides foreign booksellers with an insight into the functions and structures of the German book trade, enabling them to efficiently organise their import and sales of German books. The programme promotes dialogue with other booksellers, German publishers and wholesalers and helps participants to create their own network.

In addition to the attendance at the Frankfurt Book Fair and visits to German publishing companies the programme includes an introduction to the German book market, one day of work experience in a bookshop, two visits to wholesalers as well as cultural activities.

All visits will be supported by presentations given during the seminar. Participants will be able to report about their home countries’ book markets. Time is allowed for indepth exchanges of experience between participants, speakers and organisers.

Application deadline is July 15th, and all the necessary info can be found at the link above.

The Howling Miller tells the story of Gunnar Huttunen, a mysterious miller who shows up in the remote northern Finnish province of Lapland and buys and repairs a run-down mill that the locals had all but abandoned. A giant of a man, Gunnar Huttunen suffers from a sort of social cluelessness, of the kind that might be diagnosed as a mild case of Aspergers; he’s outwardly normal, but he doesn’t always understand the social world that surrounds him, and he tends to make earnest and obvious mistakes. Prone to comic imitations of wildlife, especially of wolves, and of the local farmers and their wives, Huttunen’s antics are first welcomed in the small village, until his darker urges, storming off to the woods mid-performance and howling like the most forlorn wolf, for example, began to take over.

When a crowd gathers to gape at him while he attempts to save his mill from a flood, Huttunen loses his cool and, seeing that they have gathered for a show, gives the crowd some more entertainment: he dances around like a crane and eventually throws a stump bomb into the river, showering the fleeing throng with ice and water. Convinced by this, and a few other of his fits of pique, that Huttunen is mad, the local grandees decide that he should be committed to a mental hospital. But before they can enact their plan, Huttunen falls in love with the local 4H representative, Sanelma Käyrämö, who helps him plant a vegetable garden near his mill.

Huttunen made do with stroking her knee. Sanelma Käyrämö reflected that she was now alone on a deserted island in the depths of a forest with a mentally ill person. How had she dared take such a risk? Gunnar Huttunen could do whatever he wanted with he without anyone being able to stop him. He could strangle her, rape her. Where would he hide the body? He’d tie stones to her feet and throw her into the stream, obviously. Only her hair would float free in the swirling current—luckily she didn’t have a perm. But what if Gunnar chopped her up in pieces and buried her? Sanelma Käyrämö, imagined the knife marks on her neck and her wrists and her thighs . . . She shivered, but not enough to take her hand out of the miller’s.

Huttunen meanwhile looked adoringly into her eyes.

‘I painted the mill this week. Red. Constable Portimo came to have a look yesterday.’

The horticulture adviser gave a start. What did the police officer want? Huttunen told her about Vittavarra’s grain, adding that he’d paid for it.

‘The police chief made me pay bread flour prices for sprouted grain. Luckily there were only five sacks.’

The horticulture adviser began fervently trying to convince Huttunen that he absolutely had to go and see Dr Ervinen. Didn’t Gunnar understand that he was ill?

Eventually the miller is captured and sent to a mental hospital, only to escape and return to the village, where he hopes to re-unite with Sanelma and clear his name. However, his presence only continues to haunt the locals, and he is forced to flee to the woods, where he plots revenge against the village and his adventures continue.

The Howling Miller is, like The Year of the Hare, a breezy, pleasant read. Paasilinna is a natural storyteller—these stories give the impression of having jumped, fully formed, from his pen to the page, or of having been passed down orally—and there’s something in his tone, or in his style, that makes his stories seem almost mythological. He has a very compelling method. On the other hand, this easiness can appear to be superficial, and you’re left at the end of his stories feeling entertained but not particularly affected either by the characters or the message of the novels. That said, I’m looking forward to someone translating some of his other novels, and next time I hope they’re done directly from the Finnish.

¹ I know you’re at a remove with any translation, but being twice removed is all the worse. Anyway, you’ve been warned.