ESFS Award to Kersti Juva

The European Science Fiction Society’s awards were presented last weekend at Shamrokon in Dublin. Among the winners is Kersti Juva, who received the best translator award.

Juva is best known as the Finnish translator of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works. Her first translation of a novel was The Lord of the Rings trilogy (parts I–II, 1973–75) with Eila Pennanen. She has translated nearly all of Tolkien’s works: The Silmarillion (1979), The Hobbit (1985), Unfinished Tales (1986), The Father Christmas Letters (2004) and The Children of Húrin (2007).

Other notable translations by Juva:

• The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne (1998)
• The Life and Adventured of Nicholas Nickleby (1992) and Bleak House (2006) by Charles Dickens
• Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne (1975)
• Watership Down by Richard Adams (1975)

She has also translated plays and radio dramas, e.g. the very popular The Men from the Ministry for The Finnish National Broadcasting Company. The translations of Kersti Juva make up the Finnish Tolkien canon and the Finnish subtitles for the Peter Jackson movies are based on her work.

Juva has received several awards for her translations, and has lectured in several universities on translating.

Tove Jansson Lectures in Tampere

There will be a lecture series in the Tampere main library this autumn celebrating the 100th anniversary of Tove Jansson’s birth. All the lectures in the series are free and open to the public; the first one is on Wednesday September 10.

How to Vote for a Worldcon

Want to help bring Worldcon to Helsinki? There’s still a year until the site selection voting takes place, but Crystal Huff has written instructions on how the voting process works. And now the instructions are also available in Finnish, courtesy of Sarianna Silvonen.

International Fandom Visitors in Turku This Week

There are a couple of international visitors in Turku this week, and they’d like to meet local fandom. Regina Kanyu Wang visits from China (she came here last year as well), and Val Grimm and her hubby Mike from the US (they’ve also visited a few years back).

If you’d like to meet them (recommended: they are all very nice and interesting persons), you can start by visiting Varjomafia today at Terrakoti. Val and Mike will be there.

Tomorrow all three will pop by Cosmic Comic Cafe at six, so there’s a kind of an extra mafia pub meeting then.

Regina will also be present at the Terrakoti summer party on Saturday, starting at six.

Sherlock Turku Meetings

The Turku Sherlockian meetings continue after a summer break on Wednesday, August 20, 6 PM at Cosmic Comic Cafe. Everyone interested is welcome to attend.

Words Without Borders

The current issue of the online literature zine Words without Borders has a focus on Finland. The issue includes an introduction to Finnish literature, and fiction from Leena Krohn, Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen (the 2012 Atorox-award-winning short story by the way), Shimo Suntila, and others. Go take a look!

(Also, a note to people interested in Finnish—many of the stories are available as bilingual versions, so you can also read the English and Finnish versions side by side if you like.)

Roadside Picnic & Jumble Sale in Tampere

On Saturday, August 9 is the traditional Roadside Picnic, an annual gathering of fandom in the Viikinsaari island in Tampere. The first people usually head for the island on the noon ferry. The gathering is at the picnic/barbecue site at the end of the island (bring our own picnic). After the picnic, the fandom gathering continues at Ruby & Fellas.

On the following Sunday, the Tampere fandom is going to put up a jumble sale in Sorsapuisto (there’s a free public jumble sale in the park on Sundays), so head there if you’re in town and want to find interesting sfnal items.