Loukko by 
We are beyond thrilled to announce that AmazonCrossing, an imprint specializing in outstanding translated fiction from around the world, has acquired World English rights to Katri Lipson’s The Ice-Cream Man (Jäätelökauppias, Tammi 2012) for publication in fall 2014. Lipson’s novel won the 2013 EU Prize for Literature, which recognizes the best new or emerging authors in Europe.
“AmazonCrossing is excited to publish Katri Lipson’s innovative novel,” says Acquiring Editor Gabriella Page-Fort. “The Ice-Cream Man opened my mind to new possibilities in storytelling. The book is at once classic and groundbreaking, and we look forward to bringing it to English-language readers worldwide.”
The Ice-Cream Man explores themes of guilt, humanity and the fuzzy lines between fact and fiction in a narrative spanning several generations. It has been praised by literary critics.
“Cinema as a visual art form is upstaged when Lipson undresses the human being with her writing.”
-Helsingin Sanomat newspaper
“Never before have I read a family chronicle told in such an original way. Even though the plot is basically a simple story about a mother, a son and his daughter, the reading experience is something altogether different; it is a breathtakingly brilliant and skilful depiction of Europeanness…”
-Turun Sanomat newspaper
Katri Lipson (b. 1965) has aspired to become a writer and a physician since childhood. She received a degree in medicine from Uppsala University in Sweden in 1993, and has also studied history, physics, and chemistry. She worked as a doctor in Africa in 1996, and has specialized in occupational medicine in Finland since then. As a writer her sources of inspiration are the Russian masters, but also Kafka, Woolf, Mann, and Duras.
This week Lipson will attend the Czech-language launch of The Ice-Cream Man in Prague. In April she is due to visit the London Book Fair as the guest of Literature Across Frontiers, an organization promoting intercultural dialogue through literature and translation.
Rights sold:
ALBANIA, Fan Noli
BULGARIA, Perseus
CZECH, Argo
HUNGARY, Typotex
TURKEY, Nemesis
WORLD ENGLISH, AmazonCrossing
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi 2012
Prizes:
EU Prize for Literature 2013 (The Ice-Cream Man)
Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize 2008 (Cosmonaut)
Nominated for the Finlandia Prize 2008 (Cosmonaut)
Reading material:
Full English draft translation
German sample
Finnish edition
Contact: info@ahlbackagency.com