Riina Tanskanen has been awarded the Torch-Bearer Prize (Tulenkantaja), which promotes the international export of Finnish literature, for her feminist comic Tympeät tytöt: Luokkakipuja (Grumpy Girls, Into). Warmest congratulations!
This is the 13th time Aamulehti’s Torch-Bearer Prize has been awarded. In addition to the €5,000 prize, the winner receives an export coaching package from FILI – Finnish Literature Exchange. The award was presented today at the Tampere Book Festival.
The winner was selected by author Iida Turpeinen, who praises Tanskanen’s book as a strikingly powerful combination of sharp social insight and artistic originality. According to Turpeinen, the work has exceptional potential to reach young and young adult readers—audiences currently seeking books that explore inequality, identity, and the politics of gender.
“The book opens up questions of class differences, pressures of working life, and the structural inequalities of everyday life in a way that is both deeply rooted in the local context and naturally connected to broader international developments. Tympeät tytöt: Luokkakipuja does more than simply depict class experience—it ties it into a wider cultural and societal conversation with clarity, emotional resonance, and a compelling sense of humour. It has strong potential to resonate across languages and cultures,” Turpeinen notes.
The five shortlisted works were Riina Tanskanen’s Tympeät tytöt: Luokkakipuja (Into), Satu Erra’s Tällainen tunne (Tammi), Maija Kajanto’s Pyykkipäivä (WSOY), Vera Vala’s Kaksoissotilas (WSOY), and Elli Salo’s Keräilijät (Otava).