Loukko by 
We are thrilled to announce that Turbine has acquired Danish rights to Maria Turtschaninoff’‘s Maresi (Schildts & Söderströms 20114), the first part of a planned trilogy entitled The Red Monastery Chronicles. Rights to the book were previously sold to Berghs in Sweden.
Set in a historically inspired world of magical realism, Turtschaninoff’s works have a distinctively female perspective with strong echoes of Tolkien. During her career she has been nominated for the Finlandia Junior Prize and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, among other honours. Maresi will be published both in Swedish (by Schildts & Söderströms in Finland and Berghs in Sweden) and in Finnish (Tammi) this autumn.
Maresi is set in the Red Monastery, located on a small, southern island, which is a refuge and haven for girls. One of them is Maresi, a 13-year-old with an appetite for learning and books, who fled there from famine and poverty four years ago. She is thoughtful and empathetic, caring for the smallest novices of the monastery and spending her time in the vast library in the House of Knowledge. The dangers of the outside world enter the island in the form of Jai, a girl with a dark past. She has escaped her home after seeing her father and uncle bury her sister alive for speaking to a young man. Soon her father and a crew of hired thugs arrive on the island in an attempt to bring Jai home, and Maresi is confronted with her worst fears: she can no longer she can no longer hide in books and words but must be the one who acts.
Praise:
“I don’t know another storyteller of this calibre. So original, so charged with power, and by such deceptively simple means […] She has the ability to wrench the reader whole-heartedly into the world of the story, and after waking up from the story the reader will have experienced something profound – purgation, catharsis, or something else altogether; something inexplicable and almost ‘sacred’ has happened to the reader, just as happens to the characters in Turtschaninoff’s stories.”
-Translator Marja Kyrö
“Turtschaninoff’s adaptability as a storyteller surprises and delights with each new book. She has a fantastic skill in creating breathtaking new worlds.”
–Savon Sanomat newspaper
RIGHTS SOLD
DENMARK, Turbine
FINLAND, Tammi
SWEDEN, Berghs
Reading materials:
English sample and synopsis
Full Swedish text
Original publisher:
Finland, Schildts & Söderströms (Swedish)
For rights inquiries contact: info@ahlbackagency.com
