As a film production company, Pontas is currently developing and financing the feature film project Traces of Sandalwood, to be directed by Maria Ripoll. Shooting is planned for 2013 with Nandita Das, Cristina Brondo and Ajay Jethi as the leading cast.

Last March, Maria Ripoll, Jep Brengaret as cameraman and Anna Soler-Pont as producer travelled to Mumbai to shoot some images for a 3-minute teaser around the city with Nandita Das. As well as images around locations in Barcelona with Cristina Brondo and Ajay Jethi. Finding distributors is now crucial and several international sales agencies have already shown interest before the Cannes Film Market 2012, where the teaser will be shown.

Among others, also attached to the project are Hélène Louvart  as director of photography, Luci Lenox as casting director and Coral Cruz as script editor.

Traces of Sandalwood is based in the novel with the same title by Asha Miró and Anna Soler-Pont, with a screenplay (written by Anna Soler-Pont) that only adapts part of the book. In the film, the story spans from the 1980s to today and is set in Mumbai and Barcelona, interweaving the stories of Muna and Sita, two Indian orphan sisters with very different fates. Muna is a thirteen years old orphan Indian girl who works as a domestic servant of a rich family in Mumbai. Not a single day goes by without her thinking of her younger sister, Sita, from whom she was forced to separate, and dreaming about finding her. Muna will end up becoming a Bollywood star and marrying the oldest son of the family where she worked. As a famous actress and happy adult, she will finally meet her sister again in Barcelona. But Sita’s adoptive parents have erased all her past tracks. She is now called Paula and works in the Center of Regenerative Medicine as a biologist doing stem cells’ research. Paula will have to do a long journey to discover who she really is with the help of a handsome Indian immigrant selling Bollywood films in a dvd store in downtown Barcelona. Muna and Sita/Paula will converge more than thirty years later, having crossed cultures and borders, and beyond a common past and a future yet to come.

For more information: anna@pontas-agency.com

  Once again, on April 23^rd , Barcelona became the capital of books and roses! Hundreds of authors signed their works to their fans and readers; booksellers were happy in a day that (once again too!) it was supposed to rain but finally didn´t; journalists run up and down to cover so many stories going on; and tourists were amazed to see such a spontaneous show around the pleasure to buy books and roses in the streets.

 The big surprise for everybody was the huge success of Jonas Jonasson´s novel in a day where normally successes are for local authors. L’avi de 100 anys que es va escapar per la finestra (La Campana) was the most sold book in Catalan language and El abuelo que saltó por la ventana y se largó (Salamandra) was the second most sold book in Spanish language.  A professional actor, Quimet Pla, became Allan Karlsson for a few hours and readers and journalists had the pleasure to approach the main character of the novel. He knew every single detail of the story and answered all sorts of questions. The only condition: to be called Allan.

Several Pontas authors were signing too. Among them, Martín Piñol, Belén Carmona, Neus Arqués… And in the photos, from left to right, Carme Martí signing her debut novel (Un cel de plom at Amsterdam and Cenizas en el cielo at Roca Editorial) was another of the most sold books of the day, in the bestselling lists since its publication in March.  And Maite Carranza  (Premio Nacional de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil 2011) had lots of young (and not so young) readers waiting for her signature.

Blanca Busquets signed for the second Sant Jordi the same book, La nevada del cucut (now also translated into Spanish), which is very rare. But since she won the Catalan Booksellers Award 2011, all booksellers wanted her to be there! Gabi Martínez was happy signing Només per a gegants/Sólo para gigantes while the French translation is on the way and several film producers have shown strong interest in the adaptation and we are in conversations…

Patrick Barkham published a good summary of the London Book Fair 2012  in The Guardian. Here’s an excerpt: “Business is brisk upstairs at the 584 tables for literary agents who, like speed-daters, try to charm foreign publishers into buying rights to their authors’ books in half-hour rendezvous. (…)  There are parties, a lot of schmoozing, people get tipsy, talk things up, then people buy something next morning.”

From left to right: Elisabeth Dyssegaard, editor-in-chief of Hyperion, in a dinner-meeting discussing details of the forthcoming publication of Jonas Jonasson’s novel in the United States; in another dinner-meeting, Danish editor Louise Konigsfeldt (from Rosinante) and French editor Marie-Pierre Graciedieu (from Éditions Stock) discussing about Dolores Redondo Meira’s debut novel (to be published simultaneously in six languages in March 2013).

Norwegian editor Synnove Tresselt (from Aschehoug, publishers of Susan Abulhawa) and Héloïse d’Ormesson (responsible for the latest  French publication of Susana Fortes ’s novels); Dutch editor Jacqueline Smit (from Orlando Uitgeverij) and Joop Boezeman, managing director of the Dutch publishing group A.W.Bruna Uitgevers (publishers of Maite Carranza, Lluís-Anton Baulenas and Jonas Jonasson, among others). 

And Nikki Griffiths, the head of publicity, sales and marketing at Hesperus Press talking about the forthcoming British edition of Jonas Jonasson ’s novel to German booksellers (and to everyone she could!).

Neus Català’s life, one of the last survivors of the Nazi extermination camps of Ravensbrück and Holleschein, is the living story of a century and an endless struggle. Her memories, collected in the form of a novel by Carme Martí with extreme sensitivity and extraordinary intensity, are true life lessons over a story that the reader does not let go. Ashes in the Sky would be the English title for Un cel de plom (in Catalan, published by Amsterdam/Ara Llibres) and Cenizas en el cielo (in Spanish, published by Roca Editorial), already in the bestselling lists right after its publication.

Born into a peasant family of Priorat, in Catalonia, Neus Català was a young woman of twenty-one years old when the Spanish Civil War broke out. In these circumstances, and animated by a deep desire of being helpful, she was appointed the head of a group of 182 children. With them she took the hard road to exile in France where she fell in love and helped the Resistence. She was deported to the Nazi camps of Ravensbrück (Germany) and Holleschein (ex-Tchechoslovaquia), where she found hell but also solidarity and friendship without limits.

 “Surrounded by unknown women who suffered the same fate as me, I felt alone and in good company at the same time. In our vast solitude we had each other.” Neus says that she survived the horror of Nazi concentration camps because of her moral strenght but especially thanks to the solidarity among her companions. When liberation came, they have promised not to forget. The return to life was not easy. Neus lived in exile in France. One day she decided to ask a photographer to take her portrait with the prisoner dress (see photo above). Not to forget. She could not return home until 1976, after the death of Spanish dictator Franco. At ninety-seven years old, Neus continues to be faithful to that oath and continues her fight for memory. 

Neus Català told her story to Carme Martí (who had to add lots of fiction too with Neus approval!) from a retirement home in her native village, Els Guiamets, near Tarragona. In the photos above: Neus and Carme; and Anna Soler-Pont, director of Pontas, taking a photo of Neus in the presence of Marina Penalva Halpin, the Catalan editor of the book and who believed in the project since the very first moment.

All translation and film rights are available. For more information: anna@pontas-agency.com

It was the beginning of February 2010 when Pontas became the international agency for Swedish author Jonas Jonasson and his debut novel The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Through the Window and Disappeared.  By then, the book was already selling very well in Sweden (published by Piratförlaget). We truly believed in the story and we started international submissions immediately. The main publishers from all around the globe got fascinated by the plot and we received offers for translation rights within a few weeks. Auctions had to be organised when in one same country several enthusiastic publishers wanted to acquire the rights!

 This is the story of an old man called Allan Karlsson who is on the verge of celebrating his 100th birthday, but decides to flee from the waiting press by escaping through the window of his old people’s home and from there on we are taken on a journey back through his life involving memorable adventures and historical moments of the 20th Century, including brushes with Winston Churchill, President Truman, Mao Zedong, Franco, De Gaulle, Stalin… with a very special sense of humour difficult to forget!

  After a long journey to find an English language publishing house (as it was explained in Publishers Weekly), finally next July 2012 the novel will reach the readers in the UK and Ireland published by Hesperus Press; and next October 2012 in the US and the rest of the world published by Hyperion. There are thousands of hungry English language readers around the planet waiting for this translation ! 

Meanwhile, Jonas Jonasson is writing his second novel, whose translation rights have already been acquired by some of his international publishing houses.

  In November 2010, the Swedish production companies Nice Entertainment and FLX 2.0 (in a joint venture called Nice FLX Pictures) beat off strong competition from around twenty other companies also competing for the film rights to the book. Respected Swedish director Felix Herngren will direct the project, which is expected to go into production in the Summer of 2012 with Herngren, Patrick Nebout and Henrik Jansson-Schweizer producing. Hans Ingemansson has written a first draft of the screenplay adaptation and the prominent Swedish comedian and actor Robert Gustafsson signed on to play the main character, Allan (in the photo below, director Felix Herngren and actor Robert Gustafsson).

“The novel captivated me from the first page, it is a humoristic masterpiece made to be shot” said Felix Herngren. Disney has acquired distribution rights for Scandinavia, for a planned Christmas 2013 release and several Hollywood studios are already in conversations with the producers for the remake rights.

 The sales of the novel are increasing all over. Allan Karlsson is an unstoppable hilarious character. In Sweden alone, sales have reached one million copies. In Germany, seven months after its publication, sales have reached 550.000 copies. In France, Italy and The Netherlands over 130.000 copies have been sold in trade in one year; and a first print run of 75.000 copies of the French pocket edition have been sold in two weeks. It is also a great success in all the other Scandinavian countries, as well as in Spanish and Catalan languages (recently published and already in their third reprints!) and now is starting to become a bestseller in Eastern Europe (sales in Poland and Hungary are being extraordinary!).

The number of awards the novel is receiving is also important.  Besides the prestigious Swedish Booksellers Award, it has also been awarded with the M-Pionier Preis 2011 (Pioneer Prize for New Successful Authors) given by the German bookshops’ chain Mayersche Buchhandlung ; the Danish Audiobook Award 2011, together with « the voice » of Paul Becker ;  the Prix Escapades in France…

For anyone interested, here´s the complete list of international publishing houses who have acquired the translation rights of Alan Karlsson’s adventures so far:

GERMAN | C. Bertelsmann/Random House
ITALIAN | Bompiani/RCS
FRENCH | Presses de la Cité
ENGLISH – US | Hyperion Books; UK & IRELAND | Hesperus Press
SPANISH  | Salamandra 
CATALAN | La Campana 
DUTCH | Signatuur
BRAZIL | Editora Record
PORTUGAL | Editora Porto
DENMARK | Modtryk
NORWAY | Piratförlaget
FINLAND | WSOY
ICELAND | Forlagid
TAIWAN | Crown Culture
CHINA | Shangai 99
RUSSIA | Corpus/AST
HUNGARY | Athenaeum Kiado
ROMANIA | Editura Trei
POLAND | Swiat Ksiazki
TURKEY | Epsilon
ESTONIA | Varrak
LITHUANIA | Zvaigzne
LATVIA | Incognito/Obuolys
ARABIC LANGUAGE | Arab Cultural Center
CZECH REPUBLIC | Grimmus
SLOVENIA | Mladinska
SERBIA | Mladinska
JAPAN | Nishimura

ISRAEL | Keter Publishing House
GREECE | Psichogios
CROATIA | Profil Knijga
VIETNAM | Tre Publishing

KOREA | Open Books 

From March 16th to the 19^th, Marc de Gouvenain and Anna Ascolies attended the Salon du Livre in Paris on behalf of the Pontas team. The big buzzes this year were the success of manga and the possible acquisition of Flammarion by Albin Michel or Actes Sud. The inauguration was for Marc the opportunity to raise a glass with Frédérique Polet and Jean Arcache (in the photo below) at Presses de la Cité stand to the huge success of the French translation of Jonas Jonasson´s novel (under the title Le vieux qui ne voulait pas fêter son anniversaire), now released in pocket edition after more than 130,000 copies sold in trade edition in one year.

Staying in Paris for some days after the fair, Marc had a busy schedule and several meetings with publishers at their mythical Parisian addresses in the 6ème Arrondissement. Among so many conversations, he could discuss about the future cover of Le dernier lapon (The Last Sami) by Olivier Truc (to be published by Éditions Métailié), about Marc´s participation in several panels at next Étonnants Voyageurs Festival in Saint Malo (with the literature from the Pacific as focus theme this year), and to talk with enthusiasm about the Pontas rights list and our clients from all over the world.

Meanwhile, Anna Ascolies had her own agenda, mainly around the events in which Brazilian author Tatiana Salem Levy was taking part in (organized at the fair by the Embassy of Brazil and the Fundação Biblioteca Nacional) together with other Brazilian authors such as Arthur Dapieve, Maria Valéria Rezende, Adriana Lisboa, Adriana Lunardi, João Anzanello Carrascoza.

And more interesting locations in the publishing world around Paris:

We can already confirm that Mornings in Jenin by Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa  is an international longseller. It is here to stay! Originally written in English language, it has already been translated into 23 languages and film rights have been sold (hopefully the story will reach the screens in a couple of years from now). But one of the great achievements arrived some days ago, when finally Susan received a printed copy of the long awaited translation into Arabic language published by Bloomsbury Qatar! This March, Susan will be the protagonist of an important promotion tour in the Middle East that will take her to Qatar, Jordan and Abu Dhabi, among other places.

But what´s the story behind this longseller? It was mid-2008 when Pontas became Susan Abulhawa’s agency with her debut novel, at the time under the title The Scar of David. The novel had already been published by a small American publishing house that went out of business shortly thereafter. But in the meantime, it was translated into French and published by Éditions Buchet Chastel under the title Les matins de Jénine. And it was through Marc Parent, the editor at Buchet Chastel –now turned into a literary agent himself—that Anna Soler-Pont heard of the novel for the first time. So Pontas became Susan’s agency two years after the original publication. From there, and in Susan’s words, “Anna began breathing new life into this novel”. British editor Alexandra Pringle became one of the biggest fans and she acquired World English rights for Bloomsbury. Then, together with Alexandra and the Bloomsbury’s team, thousands of readers, bloggers and booksellers did the rest. At the moment Australia is one of the territories where the novel is most successful in terms of sales.

And who is behind this international success? The entire editorial team at Aschehoug have managed to get Mornings in Jenin to the top of bestselling lists in Norway, with almost 100,000 copies sold in a four million people country. In the photos taken in Oslo, from left to right: Asbjorn Overas with Susan Abulhawa; Gunn Reinertsen Naess, Susan Abulhawa, Anna Soler-Pont and Synnove Helene Tresselt.

Fabio Muzi acquired the Italian rights for Feltrinelli and he has been working hard to get the book to a point where it sells 500 copies per week since several months ago. In the picture, exchanging ideas and his passion in London with Alexandra Pringle. And Susan with Swedish editor Gunilla Sondell at Norstedts, who is celebrating the fact that the novel is now really taking off in Sweden in its pocket edition (and is still in the bestselling lists too). 

Following the Pontas aim to be a bridge between cultures and to be open to represent authors from all around the world (as far as someone in the team can read them!), now we are enlarging the list of clients in Italy. Thanks to the skills of Elisa Basolu, our Italian agent, we’ll be able to provide representation services to Italian language fiction authors whose works we feel can travel in translation and to the screens.

Fulvio Strano is the first Italian author signing up with Pontas and we are glad to start representing him internationally with his latest novel Bad story, Belladonna (Brutta storia, Belladonna). Fulvio was born in Lentini, in Sicily (Italy) in 1977 and is a lawyer. In his own words, he doesn’t like novels in third person, the musicals nor people without a sense of humor. He also thinks that some of the greatest words of the Italian language are not used enough.

Fulvio has a blog: fulvio-strano.blogspot.com.

What´s Brutta storia, Belladonna about?

At his twenty-four years old, Charlie Belladonna is a borderline personality. His life runs useless and is boring and he doesn’t have any idea about his future. His mother, worried, persuades him to begin psychotherapy with Doctor Dennis Cooper, a renowned psychologist. During a hypnosis’ session, Charles pronounces a sentence in an unknown language. Where does it come from?

In the attempt to discover the origin of that strange language, Charlie will be involved in a series of events that will take him into troubles and that will culminate with his arrest for narcotic possession. In his adventure Charlie will meet strange and exhilarating characters in a surrealistic and absorbing story based on misunderstandings.

More information: elisa@pontas-agency.com

The European Film Market (EFM) runs for nine days as part of one of the most important film festivals in the world, the Berlinale. As the first major film event of the year, it is a magnet for international industry professionals, and is seen as a barometer for the upcoming year in film. Once again, Anna Soler-Pont had the opportunity to enlarge the network in the film industry and present the Pontas activity to new contacts: as a literary agency selling film rights of books with adaptation possibilities and as a production company developing and packaging film projects.

In the photos below: the magnificent exhibition building of Martin-Gropius-Bau where the EFM takes place, next to a piece of Berlin’s wall; and Majd Hijjawi (independent Jordan producer who worked as an intern in Pontas for five months last year as part of her studies at Media Business School) with Anna Soler-Pont.

From left to right: Patrick Nebout (producer) and Maria Dahlin (financial producer) at Nice FLX Pictures are working on the film adaptation of Jonas Jonasson’s novel The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Through the Window and Disappeared, whose rights they acquired last year from Pontas. The film will be written, directed and co-produced by Felix Herngren, starring Robert Gustafsson, one of Sweden’s most beloved actors. The film will start shooting in December 2012, while US studios are already in conversations for the remake rights and international distributors have started to buy some rights. Here’s an article published in Variety during EFM.   

Ayesha Chagla and Rami Yasin are associated producers together with Tim Smythe at Film Works Dubai, who have recently acquired the film rights of the novel Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa from Pontas. The book is a bestseller in several languages and is published by some of the most prestigious publishing houses in the world.

Sonja Heinen, the head of the Berlinale’s Co-Production Market, was successful again with the organization of this two-and-a-half-day event within the EFM, including also “Books at Berlinale”, the world’s first market for literary adaptations linked to an A film festival, where producers get to meet literary agents and are in touch with selected books with high potential for screen adaptation. In the picture, with Thierry Decourcelle, French producer at TF1 International, who is always actively looking for novels to adapt. And Sharon von Wietersheim, producer at Eclipse Films, based in Germany, currently developing and packaging The Violin of Auschwitz based in the bestselling novel by Catalan author Maria Àngels Anglada, translated into twenty languages and whose rights were also acquired from Pontas.

The list of Pontas clients writing in English language is being enlarged. After having included  Jason Eric Miller  recently, we are glad to inform that three more authors have joined the agency at the beginning of this year: Pete Fromm, Yvette K. Willemse and Brandon Graham.  

A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (USA), Pete Fromm  attended the University of Montana, earning a degree in Wildlife Biology with high honors in 1981. After working for several years as a river ranger in Grand Teton National Park, Pete turned to writing full time in 1990, selling more than two hundred stories since then, earning numerous awards, including mentions in O. Henry and Best American Short Stories anthologies, several Pushcart Prize nominations, and four Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book of the Year Awards. He lives in Missoula, Montana (USA). In 2000 Pete Fromm published his first novel, How all this started, and in 2003 he published As cool as I am, a novel that has already been adapted into a feature film, starring Claire Danes, James Marsden and Sarah Bolger, to be released this year 2012. His latest novel If not for this is being offered to publishers now.

Yvette K. Willemse lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, and has long had a passion for writing. From age ten, she has written more than seven hundred poems, and fifty short stories as well as several novel sized projects. One of her short stories, Snàkeeta, was selected for publication in a New Zealander anthology of short stories. Radadazh, a fantasy fiction novel for young adults, is being offered to publishers now as the first book of her « Fledgling Chronicles », to be followed by six other titles. Yvette is currently studying towards a Diploma in Arts. Her papers are related to creative writing, editing, proofreading, and freelancing. She is an accomplished singer, currently preparing for her diploma examination as well as teaching singing pupils. Yvette also plays piano. And (born in 1993) she has become the youngest Pontas client ever!

An unrepentant Southerner by birth, Brandon S. Graham has lived, worked and studied in eight different states of the USA and four different countries, receiving three university degrees. He worked as a commercial pressman and an adjunct professor in Missouri and as a gallery director in Nebraska. He studied in Budapest (Hungary) and Dijon (France). He eventually settled near Chicago where he studied visual and written narrative at Columbia College Center for Book and Paper Arts, graduating with his MFA in 2008.
Brandon’s first short story was published in the journal Pleiades in 1990. Since then he has written for performance, artist’s books, book reviews, web content and press releases. He has continued to publish poems and prose in literary journals. His novel, Good For Nothing, is being offered to publishers now. Meanwhile, Brandon continues to make art and write in Downer’s Grove, Illinois (USA) where he lives.  

How authors end up being represented by Pontas is always a story in itself. Here’s Brandon Graham’s personal story told by him in his blog: Agent search complete.  

More information: anna@pontas-agency.com