MacLehose Press pre-empts 'record-breaking' debut by Turpeinen

MacLehose Press has pre-empted the bestselling Finnish debut “sensation”, Beasts of the Sea by Iida Turpeinen, amid international buzz.

Katharina Bielenberg, publisher at MacLehose Press, bought the novel as part of a pre-emptive deal with Asya Muchnick, v.p. and executive editor at Little, Brown USA. World English-language rights were acquired from Urpu Strellman, agent at large at Helsinki Literary Agency. 

MacLehose Press and Little, Brown US will publish simultaneously in June 2025. David Hackston will be translating from the Finnish.  

MacLehose Press said: “Beasts of the Sea has become a literary phenomenon in its home country. The first print run sold out within a week of publication. The race to buy rights to the book took over international publishing around the Frankfurt Book Fair, with eight pre-empts and six other rights deals agreed, and two more in the offing. It has also just been nominated for Finland’s most prestigious literary award, the Finlandia Prize.”  

Strellman said: “The international success of Beasts of the Sea is something a Finnish debut has never encountered before. History has been made with such a row of pre-empts by great publishing houses, now crowned with two of the most renowned publishers of translated fiction in the English-speaking world. But the novel is one of a kind. In it, Iida Turpeinen melds together ingredients from science and history to a beautiful work of literary fiction in a way only a great storyteller can.” 

Dubbed a “sensation” by MacLehose Press, Beasts of the Sea sees “natural history, human endeavour and the extinction of species meld with compelling and ambitious storytelling”. It is set over three centuries from the 1740s to the 1950s and based on the lives and careers of three individuals, the story is of man’s relationship to other species especially Steller’s sea cow. This animal is “a strange, wonderful sea creature that became extinct 30 years after its discovery by German explorer Georg Wilhelm Steller”. 

Bielenberg said: “Iida Turpeinen has produced an impeccably researched voyage of discovery embedded in the natural world, with terrific characters, and an elegiac meditation on human shortsightedness. It deals with such universal themes in a sustained, vivid, poetic way; you could press it into the hands of any reader.”  

Muchnick described it as a “gorgeously written, at once intimate and sweeping novel by a hugely talented debut author”.

Turpeinen said: “I am absolutely delighted that Beasts of the Sea will soon be made available for the English-speaking readers, too. The book could not have found a better home, and I am thrilled and honoured to be able to collaborate with MacLehose Press and Little, Brown Company.”