Finnish books to reach new ears

Marko Hautala’s audiobook series Isä Malakain silmät will be published on Storytel’s digital book service in the Netherlands, Denmark and Poland next year, and Marko Kilpi’s whodunit series Undertaker will be published on Swedish Storytel in May.

Both series are published by Storytel as Storytel Original audiobooks, meaning that they have been published directly in audio form.

“This is incredible,” says Kilpi. “Getting translations from Finnish to Swedish is really difficult, particularly in the detective story genre. I deem this remarkable.”

Hautala says he was excited to write a thriller story directed at listeners instead of readers.

“What’s even greater is that it’s now travelling to language areas where my novels haven’t previously been available,” he adds.

Storytel currently operates in eight countries. According to Victoria Vatanskaja, publishing manager at Storytel Finland, Finnish authors have raised plenty of interest abroad.