August reading in Helsinki. Image – Getty: Diatrezor
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
See also:
Rights Edition: Frankfurt’s 2024 ‘Centre for Words’ in Hall 4.1
Rights Edition: Paola Passarelli on Italian Rights, Translation, and Stereotypes
The Calm Before It
This time of year can feel like taking a quick inhale before diving off a 10-meter platform in Paris. Many agents who contribute news of rights deals are on summer breaks, catching their breaths before the free-fall of Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 16 to 20) and the weeks of setting up meetings and discussions beforehand.
We’re taking advantage of this today (August 9) in our Rights Edition stories that accompany this Roundup, with a look at Frankfurt’s Guest of Honor Italy‘s international trade in the assessment of the ministry’s Paola Passarelli. Plus, we have commentary about the upcoming “Centre of Words” program at Frankfurt, which focuses on translation—because if the rights business is at the heart of the world’s biggest trade show, translation is at the heart of rights transactions.
And coming Monday: Commentary from a rights agent in Istanbul.
As in each roundup, we use some of the sales copy supplied to us by agents and rights directors, editing that copy to give you an idea about a book’s nature and tone, but limiting the promotional elements. If you’d like to submit a deal to Publishing Perspectives, see the instructions at the end of this article.
‘Hospital Heroes’ cover coming in October
Hospital Heroes Save the Day!
(Breezy Valley at Work series)
By RW Alley (text and illustrations)
- Original publisher: Kane Press (Astra Books for Young Readers), New York City
- Rights contact: Marleen Seegers, 2 Seas Agency
- Book info: Read more here
Reported rights sales. This book (Hospital Heroes) in the series publishes in October.
- Newest – Poland: Debit-Sonia Draga
- Ukraine: Vivat Publishing
“The workers of Breezy Valley Hospital are always ready to provide top-notch medical care to the residents of their beloved town.
RW Alley
“Doctors, nurses, lab workers, kitchen staff, and maintenance workers are just a few of the staffers working to keep the hospital running smoothly. And when emergencies happen, the EMTs (emergency medical technicians) and their ambulance come to the rescue—as when Lemur needed to be brought to the hospital to get treatment for an injured tail.”
As mentioned, this book in the Breeze Valley at Work series is to be released in October. Our image is from the October 2023 release, Firefighters to the Rescue, and below you can see covers of this one translated to Polish (from Sonia Draga) and Lithuanian (from AlmaLittera). The third volume in the series is set for October 2025, and is to focus on construction workers.
Territories sold for the first volume on firefighters include:
- Norway: Bonnier Norsk Forlag, in a preempt
- The Netherlands: Ploegsma
- Lithuania: AlmaLittera
- Greece: Key Books
- Russia: Abrakazyabra
- China: Post Wave (Ginkgo), at auction
- Spanish and Catalan: Juventud
- Hungary: Pagony
- Indonesia: Badan Pengembangan
- Poland: Debit-Sonia Draga
- Denmark: Staarup
- Ukraine: Vivat Publishing
Translated and published editions of the first volume on firefighters: Lithuanian, left, and Polish
The Story of Aino and Alvar Aalto
By Heikki Aalto-Alanen
- Original publisher: Otava, Helsinki
- Rights contact: Elina Ahlback, Ahlback Agency
- Book info: Read more here
Reported rights sales:
- Newest – Finland: Film and television rights: Solar Films Oy
- Estonia: Postimees
- France: Phaidon Press
- Hungary: Európa Könyvkiadó
- Italy: GeMS / Salani
- Japan: Soshisha
- World English: Phaidon Press, London
Alvar and Aino Aalto
Do you know the Finnish design and architectural work of Alvar and Aino Aalto? The careers of Aino (1894-1949) and Alvar (1898-1976) together spanned Nordic Classicism through International Modernism. Her (Aino’s) work is represented in curator Paola Antonelli’s design collection at the Museum of Modern Art for its pioneering importance in the Scandinavian school. And it’s at MoMA that his work is singled out for its “remarkable synthesis of romantic and pragmatic ideas.”
Heikki Aalto-Alanen
Alvar Aalto’s grandson Heikki is the author of this biographical work, which includes “photos, sketches, and personal letters between Aino and Alvar, beautifully illustrating how inseparable this couple was both in work and love, and bringing a deeply human element to their story.”
“In addition to the photographs from the family archive, the book is illustrated with Aino’s and Alvar’s drawings of each other and of their children, along with architectural drawings and photographs. This plethora of materials tells the story of the unique partnership between the world-famous design couple.”
A promotional video about the book is here:
Jean-Rex
By Joaquin Camp (text and illustrations)
Translated by Marie-Andrée Dufresne
- Original publisher: Les 400 coups, Montreal
- Rights contact: Simon de Jocas, Les 400 coups
- Book info: Read more here
No reported rights sales as yet: this book publishes on October 8.
“Poor Jean-Rex… Scaring people is not his favorite pastime. But it’s difficult for the gigantic lizard to admit his true interests, he who comes from a family of reptiles whose fear has made them famous from generation to generation.
Author and illustrator Joaquín Camp and translator Marie-Andrée Dufresne
“With the help of the inhabitants of the big city in which he has settled, Jean-Rex will try to make his visiting parents believe that he is terror incarnate. Will he succeed? Or will he have to confess his true passion to them?
“In this gigantic book that gives pride of place to its gigantic hero, author and illustrator Joaquin Camp has fun with the codes of kaiju films (creatures with the unfortunate habit of trampling cities and their inhabitants) to create an ode to difference filled with happiness, freedom, poetry, and humor.”
I’ll Find You on a Beautiful Day
By Lee Do Woo
- Original publisher: SooBakSeolTang Corp, Seoul
- Rights contact: Chiara Tognetti, Chiara Tognetti Rights Agency
- Book info: Read more here
Reported rights sales:
- Newest – Italian: Mondadori
- Polish: Foksal, at auction
- Brazilian: Intrinseca
- French: Decrescenzo
- Russian: AST
A TV series poster for ‘When the Weather Is Fine’
This book is the basis for the 2020 16-episode Netflix series When the Weather Is Fine, directed by Ji-Seung Han and produced by JTBC in South Korea and Netflix-Singapore. The show follows a young cellist who moves from the city to a small town. The series is categorized by IMDB as “swoonworthy, emotional, and romantic.”
About the book: “Young cellist Haewon quits her job in Seoul and returns to the village in which she grew up. She finds her old friend, Eun-seop, who runs a small bookstore, and meets the members of the book club where secrets and feelings are shared together with books.
“Through the books they share and a not-so-private diary, the daily life of the bookstore will confront buried secrets and feelings that soon resurface.
Lee Do Woo
“In the cold winter, trying to escape the harsh and bitter reality of life, Haewon and Eun-seop find warmth in each other, they heal from their past wounds and, yes, fall in love.”
The Chiara Tognetti Rights Agency classifies this as “an ode to love, friendship, tenderness, and to the books that bring us together.”
Author Lee Do Woo is a former radio editor whose writing is said to be poetic, simple, warm, and deep.
One Hundred Days at Home
By Matilda Gyllenberg
Illustrated by Maria Sann
- Original publisher: Förlaget M, Helsinki
- Rights contact: Friederike Ridegh, Rights and Brands
- Book info: Read more here
Reported rights sales:
- Worldwide German: Limbion Ug
Matilda Gyllenberg, left, and Maria Sann
“Matilda Gyllenberg’s first children’s novel is a fast-paced detective mystery that touches on important subjects such as mental illness and focuses on the main circles of a pre-teen: the close surroundings, school and friends.
“The story emphasizes how important it is to be understood and seen by the adults around you. ”
Maria Sann’s illustrations for the book are in black and white. Sann has worked in both children’s books and on adult titles’ covers. Weh was awarded the Rudolf Koivu Award in 2021, and has produced two books with Malin Klingenberg.
Nothing Grows by Moonlight
By Torborg Nedreaas
- Original publisher: Aschehoug, Oslo
- Rights contact: Henrik Francke, Oslo Literary Agency
- Book info: Read more here
Reported rights sales:
- Newest – World English: Penguin Random House / Penguin Press / Penguin Classics (expected to be released in March 2025)
- German: Luchterhand
- Dutch: De Geus
- Swedish: Wahlström & Widstrand
- Danis: Turbine
- French: Cambourakis
- Spanish: Errata Naturae
In Nothing Grows by Moonlight, “A young woman becomes involved in a secret relationship with her former teacher. In the blue dusk of a spring evening, a man is drawn to a lonely, beautiful stranger across a station platform. She follows him home, and over one heady night of wine and cigarettes, recounts to him the devastating story of her life.
“Despite her deep longing and love for him, the differences in age and class background prevent him from taking their relationship seriously.
“When she becomes pregnant, her life gradually spirals out of control.”
Nothing Grows by Moonlight is considered a modern classic from 1947 about obsessive desire and the struggle of being a woman in a conservative society. Nedreass (1906-1987) was recognized with numerous prizes. She received the prestigious Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature (Kritikerprisen) in 1950, the Dobloug Prize (Doblougprisen) in 1964 and in 1972 the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize (Nordisk Råds litteraturpris).
If you’re not familiar with her work, you’ll find that Nedreass wrote a series of novels, novellas, plays, and pieces for television. Many of her books were set in the environment and in settings from Leirvik, where she spent many summers in her childhood. Class differences and poverty are central themes that permeate her work.
Torborg Nedreaas. Image: Aschehoug
Submitting Rights Deals to Publishing Perspectives
Do you have rights deals to report? Agents and publishing-house rights directors can use our rights deal submission form to send us the information we need. If you have questions, please send them to Porter@PublishingPerspectives.com
We look forward to hearing from you.
More of Publishing Perspectives‘ rights roundups are here, and more from us on international rights trading is here.
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