Compartment No. 6

ORIGINAL TITLE: Hytti nro 6

ORIGINAL PUBLISHER: WSOY

GENRE: Fiction, Film rights

A Finnish girl studying archeology in Moscow in the late 1980´s, leaves behind the big city, her boyfriend and the boyfriend’s mother. She desperately wants to see the ancient rock-paintings in Ulan Bator, Mongolia.

She shares the train compartment with a huge Russian man in his forties, travelling with garlic and vodka in his bag. The girl is silent, the man speaks. His speech is loud and vulgar: it grows from hard experience and a grotesque view of the world. He has grown up in the streets, been in prison for murder, and is now on his way to a big construction site in Siberia.

The train lingers for a long time at many stations, sometimes more than a day. At these stops, a changing country can be seen – the Soviet Union, where ”everything is moving, snow, water, air, clouds, wind, towns, villages, people and ideas.” The girl becomes the man’s prisoner, she cannot leave the cabin, she must see and hear all about Soviet life, and soon enough experience it herself.

The trip is a nightmare, and at the same time a twisted, beautiful story. Compartment no 6 is a novel, where there is room for both joy and piercing pain in the same sentence.

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Sale sheet (PDF)
Sample translation (PDF)

Reviews

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”…a wonderful novel…”

Neue Züricher Zeitung

"Rosa Liksom moves deftly between a myriad of subplots as they unfold in tandem to the novel's central theme, in this way creating a powerful impression of the many torments that have shaped the destiny of the Russian people. Within the flowing descriptions each story lies enclosed within the next much as with Russian dolls, and the least is the most touching of all."

La Liberté Suisse

"The literary composition alone is worth the money, the melodic, rhythmic language, compressed, poetical and replete with fragrance and colour sensations… The girl and the man, this unlikely couple, accompany one another at the close across the plains as if progressing through a film by Andrej Tarkovskij."

Svenska Dagbladet

"The outcome is both atmospheric and beautiful, an elegy to the Soviet Union and its people, the land where ‘unhappiness is perceived as happiness.”

Helsingborgs Dagblad

"All this black as night misery and despair are elevated by the writer into literature. She achieves this by means of the girl’s acute observations and sensitivity and the man’s luxuriating exaggeration and burlesque vehemence… The entire text is saturated with marked sensuality: the taste of buckwheat porridge, beetroots and rancid fat. And the human smells of sweat, fusel alcohol and poverty… And thus ‘Hytti no 6’ becomes a remarkable little book."

Göteborgs-Posten

"The wild stories of the rough fellow passenger make this journey increasingly absurd, giddying and captivating… It is a stroke of genius to describe a country and give form to one’s mixed feelings for it through such a figure. To me, he is the incarnation of the human factor, which means that reason can never prevail, neither in planned nor in Capitalist economies."

Aftonbladet

"Liksom is a master of controlled exaggeration. With a couple of carefully chosen brushstrokes, a mini-story, she is able to conjure up an entire human destiny." .

From the motivation for the Finlandia Prize

"The most fascinating thing about this short novel is Rosa Liksom’s masterly ability to visualise life and landscape. She is an artist, after all, and the imagery in the book is often very surprising and always loaded with meaning."

Hufvudstadsbladet

Rights sold

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Bulgarian rights sold to Perseus

Danish rights sold to Tiderne skifter

Dutch rights sold to Podium

Estonian rights sold to Koolibri

Film rights sold to Aamo Filmcompany Ltd

French rights sold to Gallimard

German rights sold to DVA

Hungarian rights sold to Szephalom

Icelandic rights sold to Uppheimar

Italian rights sold to Iperborea

Latvian rights sold to Zvaigzne

Lithuanian rights sold to Kitos Knygos

Macedonian rights sold to Antolog

Portuguese (Brazil) Rights sold to Realejo

Portuguese rights sold to Relogio D Agua

Russian rights sold to Text

Spanish Rights sold to Alianza

Spanish rights sold to Salamandra

Swedish rights sold to Wahlström & Widstrand

World English rights sold Serpents Tail UK

Compartment No. 6 reviewed in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal

We’re thrilled to see the film “Compartment No.6” appearing as “Critic’s Pick” in The New York Times. The film, based on Rosa Liksom’s novel and directed by Juho Kuosmanen, is set on a Russian train where Laura and Ljoha, strangers to each other, have to share the same compartment. The...

Rosa Liksom’s The River shortlisted for the Finlandia-award!

Rosa Liksom’s The River is shortlisted for the prestigious Finlandia prize, for her novel The River, published by Like in September. Says the jury: "The story of the girl grows into a universal tale of the refugee and the connection between us humans and the rest of the creation. The prize is...

Teaser trailer on Compartement No. 6 motion picture!

We are thrilled to share the teaser trailer for the film Compartement No. 6, based on Rosa Liksom’s magnificent and atmospheric novel, that will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival Competition next month (July 6 – 17)! Compartement No. 6 is produced by Jussi Rantamäki for Finland’s Aamu Film...