The Clan
Following the Sammakko family, brothers Samuli, Benjamin and Leevi endure a hard-scrabble life where the Sammakkos and their loved ones balance their lives on the line between right and wrong. The counterforce is represented by the police – a clan of their own. Awakened to the intersection of society’s values and his own family’s choices, Aleksanteri Sammakko, the youngest son, realises the possibility of a better life. But the young hopeful of the family is drawn into fights and larceny.
Tauno Kaukonen received critical acclaim for a narrative power rarely seen in debuts, garnering him success and an immediate bestseller status in Finland at the time. In timelessly fresh and colourful language, coupled with its realistic narrative and expressive portrayal of humanity, The Clan remains as relevant as ever sixty years after its first publication.
The novel was adapted into a feature film in 1984, directed by Mika Kaurismäki, with an award-winning original soundtrack composed by Anssi Tikanmäki. Most recently, it was adapted for the stage by Tampere Theatre in 2023. The novel has only ever been translated into Hungarian and Rights & Brands is pleased to be the first-ever foreign rights representation for the novel.
A full English translation will be available soon.
Publishing information
Reviews
“... a very polished text and lively sentences.”
“What delights in Kaukonen's novel, alongside the tremendous epic power development, is the author's innate and unsentimental warmth, which creates a rare beautiful and luminous portrayal of young love as a wonderful adventure in the shadow of crime and danger and the foreboding of sad disappearances. It has also enabled Kaukonen, like Dostoyevsky, to bestow on bitter misery, on deep decay, on bad people, a piece of undeniable human dignity.”