Novel by Finland's 'best kept secret' to Pushkin

Pushkin Press has acquired the latest novel by "one of Finland’s best kept secrets", Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen.

Adam Freudenheim acquired world English rights from Rita Karlsson at the Kontext Agency. Pushkin plans to publish in autumn 2017.

Secret Passages in a Hillside Town is the working title of the book. It follows Olli Suominen, a children’s book publisher, who is bored and moving through life in a stupor. But when he contacts his long-lost childhood sweetheart, his bleak and mundane life slips away and dramatic, suppressed childhood memories resurface.

This will be the second of Jääskeläinen's novels to be published in English. Jääskeläinen's first English novel was The Rabbit Back Literarture Society which was published by Pushkin in 2013.

Rabbit Back translator Lola Rogers will return to translate Secret Passages.

Adam Freudenheim, publisher of Pushkin Press, said: "I'm delighted that we'll be publishing another novel from the weird and wonderful imagination of Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen. Rabbit Back had a terrific reception and was one of our bestselling books of the past few years. I'm sure Pasi's many fans will be excited to have the chance to enter his world again."