The Darnedest Things
Swedish Kid-Savants, Greece’s Sippable Fiction, And Pilch Toasts All of Holland
A wave of mourning sweeps over Sweden this month with the passing of Astrid Lindgren, mother of Pippi Longstocking, though her spirit lives on in the mischievous Swedish bestseller of the moment, Old Ladies Don’t Lay Eggs. This zinger of a title is a frolicsome compendium of quotes from schoolchildren who were asked to opine on the inscrutable adult world. Among the book’s other useful revelations: “Women have curves, men have cases.” And the fashion-impaired can rest assured: “It’s not your appearance that counts. It’s your mouth.” Written by Mark Levengood, a well-known Swedish TV personality, with co-author Unni Lindell, a star crime fiction writer from Norway, the book has hugged the top of the bestseller list for three months running and has sold 180,000 copies in Sweden alone — a grand slam for a nation of just 9 million. Interview subjects ranged from ages 4 to 11, and some of the zaniest nuggets of wisdom highlight the kids’ wordplay: “When you wash your head,” explains one youngster, “it’s called brain wash.” As a reviewer for the nation’s Library Journal confessed, “I almost laughed myself to death.” Rights have been sold to Finland (Schildts), Denmark (Borgens), and Germany (Eichborn), and we’re told both US and UK rights are available. See agent Bengt Nordin in Stockholm.
Elsewhere, that “great hope for Greek fiction,” the divine Ioanna Karystiani, splashes down in the Aegean with Suit on the Ground, said to be a dark tale of “old blood” warmed by plenty of smoldering resentment. The hero Kyriakos left Greece for America when he was 15, but 30 years later — after a successful career at the National Institute of Health — he decamps for his home village to search for a cousin who murdered his father. A sordid and tangled family feud promptly ensues. Karystiani’s earlier novel Little England won the Greek National Fiction Award in 1998, with one critic enthusing, “You want to sip it word by word.” That title, about the lonely plight of women in early 20th century Greece, was sold to Italy (Crocetti), Germany (Insel), Bulgaria (Biblioteka 48), and France (Seuil), with deals said to be simmering in the UK, Holland, and Spain. The new one has thus far been sold to Germany (Suhrkamp) and Italy (Crocetti). Talk to Maria Fakinou at Kastaniotis.
Also in Greece, the bestselling orthopedic surgeon–turned–historian Alexandros Zaoussis has wowed the crowds with his fifth historical opus, Alexander and Aspasia, set in Greece during World War I. The story kicks off as young Prince Alexander assumes the Greek throne in 1917, soon falling in love with the lovely Aspasia Manos and embarking upon a scandalous secret marriage that puts all of Athens in a twitter. Some 25,000 copies have been sold to date, and Louisa Zaoussi at Oceanida handles rights.
A few notes from Spain, where Matilde Asensi has plundered the world’s archives for The Last Cato, described as a “historical thriller” that ransacks the past for the book’s many twists and turns. Doctor Ottavia Salinas heads the laboratory for Restoration and Paleography at the Vatican’s secret archives, when she gets an urgent call to decipher odd tattoos on the body of a man charged with crimes against the church. Surprise references to Dante’s Divine Comedy and the death of Christ take this case into positively Borgesian territory. Rights to Asensi’s two earlier novels, Jacob (more than 80,000 copies sold) and The Amber Hall, have been sold to Germany (DTV) and Greece (Periplous), respectively. About 70,000 copies of the new one have been sold since the book’s publication last September, with a sixth printing just out. See agent Antonia Kerrigan at the Kerrigan Agency in Barcelona. Also in Spain, a housekeeper with a double life is the furtive star of Dorothea’s Song, winner of last year’s Planeta Prize and the latest novel from Rosa Regás. When a Madrid university professor seeks a caretaker for her ailing father, the pertly efficient Adelita seems perfect for the job. A precious ring soon goes missing, however, and the household is dumped into a “spiral of attraction and repulsion” that bottoms out in a roiling mystery of “passions and ambiguities.” The multitasking author Regás has founded a publishing house and directed the Ateneo Americano at the Casa de América in Madrid, a center for Iberian-American dialogue. In her spare time, she won the Nadal prize in 1994 with the novel Blue. The new book was released last November, with a first print run of 210,000 copies. See agent Carmen Balcells for rights. And on a final Spanish note, Chilean writer Marcela Serrano hits the list in both Spain and Argentina with her sixth novel What’s In My Heart, the story of a young woman who finds renewed passion in revolutionary Chiapas following the death of her son. The book has sold 105,000 copies in Spain, plus another 45,000 in Latin America, and rights have been sold to Italy and Portugal. See Mónica Herrero at the Guillermo Schavelzon agency in Buenos Aires.
In Argentina, prolific journalist and historian Laura Restrepo’s Errant Crowd pops up on the bestseller list, probing what critics call “the misery and violence at the heart of Colombian society” as it dramatizes the plight of uprooted families amid a war-torn countryside. The book sifts through the carnage and focuses on the unlikely bonds of love forged in the region’s battered refugee camps. The 52-year-old Restrepo recently won raves for The Dark Fiancée, a work that grew out of her journalistic investigation into the world of prostitutes in a Colombian town. That title is said to be a stirring portrait of the beautiful Sayonara as she services the squalid paradise of oil workers in the Colombian forest. The new book was originally published by Planeta Colombiana, though we’re told Seix Barral has acquired rights for the rest of Latin America. See agent Mercedes Casanovas in Barcelona.
Last but not least, Poland returns to our bestseller lineup this month and features prominent writer Jerzy Pilch’s Under a Mighty Angel. A sort of Polish version of Drinking: A Love Story, the book chronicles “a private apocalypse” in the rural town of Wisla, and delves into the rabid thirsts spawned by the potent admixture of alcoholism and literature. The author is a columnist for the well-known Polish weekly Polityka. The new book won last year’s Nike prize, the most prestigious literary honor in Poland, and has sold 100,000 copies to date, with rights sold to France, Serbia, and Holland. See Joanna Dabrowska at publisher Literackie.
