Sara Blaedel, the Danish Queen of Crime, will be translated into Spanish

Ediciones Mosaico (Grupo Norma) has acquired Spanish translation rights of Sara Blaedel's 'Aldrig mere fri' (Farewell to Freedom), which was a success in Denmark and will be published in Spanish in 2010. Sara Blaedel is one of the most succesful contemporary Danish authors and she is known as the ''Danish Queen of Crime Fiction".

The deal was made on behalf of Joakim Hansson at Nordin Agency (Sweden).

Aldrig mere fri (Farewell to Freedom)

People’s Press, Denmark, 2008. 

Late one night, a woman is found murdered off a street in Copenhagen’s Vesterbro. The cause of action turns out to be particularly bloody, seeing as someone has slit her throat in an unusually brutal way. Together with a group of colleagues at the Copenhagen Police Department, Louise Rick is quickly digging deep into the case, when her friend, Camilla Lind, phones her up. 

Camilla is a crime reporter on a morning paper and wants to find out if there are any new developments in the case, but at the same time she is deeply upset by an event that same morning, her ten year-old son found an abandoned baby on his way to school.  All the traces from the crime scene are pointing towards organised human trafficking from Eastern Europe, and it soon becomes clear to Louise that the perpetrators are a bunch of ruthless gangsters who despise women and won’t hesitate to kill anyone who gets in their way.

 

* This novel had the largest marketing budget in the history of Danish publishing. 

* Number 1 on the Danish Best Seller Lists for several months.

Translation rights Sold to: Germany (Lübbe), Iceland (Upheimar), Sweden (Prisma), Spain (Mosaico/Norma).

Sara Blædel has worked as a journalist for nine years and has been a chief director for several TV shows on Danish Television. She has also written non-fiction debate books and even founded her own publishing house, Sara B, specialising in crime mysteries.  All of her novels published to date focus on Chief Inspector Louise Rick. The successful series has been sold to several countries, icluding Germany, Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, Hungary and Iceland. Now Spanish readers will be able to meet Louise Rick for the first time...

Sara Bleadel has been voted the Most Popular Author by the public in Denmark. www.sarablaedel.dk 

Good comments about Ricardo Adolfo's ''Depois de morrer aconteceram-me muitas cosas''

A few weeks ago Ricardo Adolfo's new novel, "Depois de morrer aconteceram-me muitas cosas" (Lots Happened to me After I Died), received very good comments in the Portuguese journal 'Diário Digital'. 

Below see a translation into English of the beginning of that review, which you can also see in Portuguese (here).

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“Lots Happened to me After I Died”, published by Alfaguara Portugal, discusses a subject common to million of Portuguese but somehow rare in our literature: emigration. Perhaps this book will change that peculiar situation, mostly because of its story, which manages to pull smiles out of a drama… 

“Lots Happened to me After I Died” is a big, enjoyable surprise. Ricardo Adolfo is able to easily pass on those problems that are common to all emigrants: from feeling invisible in the host country, to the uncertainty about the future, the exploitation suffered, the quest for symbols of personal success, etc.

However, the most fascinating part of this story is the rhythm. Writing in a way that is extremely appealing and straight to the point, Ricardo Adolfo takes the reader trough the psychological drama of the narrator, which allows us to join the troubled life of an emigrant couple during a day and a half. The truth is, we can’t let go of these characters’ lives - that with each passing hour get closer to the abyss. And we tag along with them… 

Having worked in advertising for 15 years, currently based in London after living in Amsterdam, Ricardo Adolfo admits he started writing because, “as an emigrant, I felt the need to pull Portugal towards me”. And the truth is, he has. “Lots Happened to me After I Died” should be read without prejudice nor shame, especially as it focuses on a subject that seems to be taboo in our literature. 

(c) Pedro Justino Alves & Diário Digital. 

The Film Club, by David Gilmour, sold to Editora Pergaminho in Portugal

A charming and poignant story about a very special time 

in a father and son's relationship.

Editora Pergaminho, in Portugal, acquired translation rights of 'The Film Club', by David Gilmour. The deal was made on behalf of Sam Hiyate and Kelvin Kong, from The Rights Factory (Canada).

A delightful and absorbing book about the agonies and joys of home-schooling a beloved son, "The Film Club" is the true story about David Gilmour's decision to let his 15-year-old son drop out of high school on the condition that the boy agrees to watch three films a week with him. The book examines how those pivotal years changed both their lives.


From French New Wave, Kurosawa, and New German cinema, to De Palma, film noir, Cronenberg and Billy Wilder, among many others from world cinema, we read about key moments in each film, as the author teaches his son about life and the vagaries of growing up through the power of the movies. Replete with page-turning descriptions of scenes and actors and directors, the narrative is framed with the tender story of his son's first bittersweet first loves.

Foreign rights of 'The Film Club'have been sold to more than 20 languages. 

Behind the Spanish Barricades - already out in Spanish

Ediciones Península has already published its edition of John Langdon-Davies's 'Behind the Spanish Barricades'. 

See more info (here)

The Destitutes of Lodz, by Steve Sem-Sandberg, sold to Literatura Mondadori (Spanish rights)

Just at the final sprint for Frankfurt Book Fair, we are glad to annouce the sale of world Spanish rights of this novel by Swedish author Steve Sem-Sandberg to Literatura Mondadori (an imprint of Random House Mondadori). The deal has been made on behalf of Nordin Agency AB, Sweden.

Literatura Mondadori is the Spanish publisher of acclaimed authors such as:  Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Gabriel García Márquez, JM Coetzee, Orham Pamuk, David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers or Javier Cercas.

SalmaiaLit also handles Portuguese (Portugal & Brazil) and Catalan rights.

Below you have information about this novel, which we hope will become a success in every country where it will be published!

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* The portrait of a controversial man that is being compared to J. Littell ‘Les Bienveillantes’

*Already sold to: Aschehoug (Norway), Gyldendal (Denmark), Ambo Anthos (Holland), Marsilio (Italy), Literatura Mondadori (Spanish), Kinnaret (Israel), Paseka (Chzeck Rep.), and offers not yet closed from other territories.

DE FATTIGA I LODZ (The Destitutes Of Lodz), by Steve Sem-Sandberg

Albert Bonniers Förlag, Sweden, 2009, 662 pp.

The Destitutes of Lodz is a novel about the Jewish ghetto that was established by the Nazis in the Polish city of Lodz. It is the story of Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, the Nazi-appointed Jewish leader of this camp, and his ambiguous and shady role in the annihilation of the Polish Jews. 

In the summer of 1944, Himmler gives orders to “liquidate” the ghetto. As transportation to the Nazi death camps increases, so does the ghettos inhabitants’ knowledge of them. Slowly but surely the Lodz ghetto, with its 250.000 people, is emptied of all citizens and Rumkowski is finally forced to leave his safe haven. In August 1944, shortly after leaving the ghetto, he is killed in Auschwitz, alongside his entire family.

Sem-Sandberg’s novel describes the life in the sealed off town district. It speaks of the imposing German cadaver discipline, the gruesome slave labour, the starvation, and the futile escape attempts. Paradoxically, in the emergence of the collective and craftily subversive Ghetto Chronicles - the author’s main source for this novel - the reader is also shown the art of survival, and man’s remarkable will to live. 

In The Destitutes of Lodz, Steve Sem-Sandberg takes his reader on a powerfully moving journey into the cold realities of the Holocaust.

Choice of REVIEWS:

* This is real literature. A great work of fiction. Steve Sem-Sandberg steps forward as a worthy and completed successor to, shall we say, a PO Enquist – with whom he shares not only the ability to make poetry out of prose but also a fascination for treachery’s and betrayal’s lowest sediment. Per Svensson, Dagens Nyheter.

* Perhaps the very first holocaust account that dares to step away from the black and white perspective. In the hands of Sweden’s foremost European storyteller, the truth is not always what it seems. Daniel Sjölin, Babel

* Steve Sem-Sandberg’s latest novel “The Destitutes of Lodz” – massive in size but polished to a light conciseness in every last detail – is also a majestic portrayal where documented facts create the foundation for fictions insight into historical fate. Mikael van Ries, Svenska Dagbladet

About the author:

Steve Sem-Sandberg (b. 1958) is one of Sweden’s greatest literary talents. He divides his time between Vienna and Stockholm. This cosmopolitan author has been nominated for the August Prize, the Swedish Radio Literary Award and the prestigious Nordic Council Literary Award. In 2007 he was the first person to receive the esteemed Sorescu Award and was recently honoured with De Nios Grand Award, with the following motivation: "for an advanced literary craftsmanship, characterized by an intellectual mindset, a historical feeling of presence and insightful character portraits." 

His trilogy on the three most infamous women of the 20 th Century (Milena Jesenská, Ulrike Meinhof and Lou Andreas Salomé) won great acclaim in Scandinavia. Härifrån till allmänningen (From Here to the Great Commons), published in 2005 and set during the interesting period between 1965 and 1975, is a more commercial title that received outstanding reviews. With his latest novel De fattiga i Lodz (The Destitutes of Lodz), 2009, Steve Sem-Sandberg has been highly praised in the Swedish media. The novel took him five years to write during which he lived through a life threatening kidney disease and came through it looking at life in a whole new light. 

Bibliography:

De fattiga i Lodz / The Destitutes of Lodz, 2009 

Härifrån till allmänningen / From Here to the Great Commons, 2005 

Ravensbrück / Ravensbrück, 2003 

Allt förgängligt är bara en bild / Only the Image Remains, 1999 

Theres / Theres, 1996