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.
