Thursday, October 28, 2010

Love of Books Award to Toni Jerrman

The Finnish Fair Foundation has given the “For the Love of the Book” achievement prize to Toni Jerrman in recognition of his long-standing cultural work in the field of science fiction, fantasy, and horror literature. The jury commended Jerrman for a determined and sincere enthusiasm that has promoted awareness of genre literature for over 25 years. He has worked in the field as an editor, newspaper critic, radio journalist, and lecturer, and with his “rock spirit, anarchism, and courage” helped especially adolescent boys and young men find their way into the habit of reading books. Toni’s influence in the Finnish fandom was also recognized by the jury.

The Finnish Fair Foundation operates in conjunction with the Finnish Fair Corporation and aims to promote Finnish trade and industry, as well as Finnish business life in general. The Love of Books award is worth 5 000 €, and the winner is decided by a jury that this year comprised the chairwoman of the Finnish Book Publishers’ Association Anna Baijars, author Olli Jalonen, professor Laura Kolbe, author Sofi Oksanen, editor-in-chief Jarmo Papinniemi and cultural journalist Reetta Ravi.

3 comments:

Johan A said...

Extremely well deserved. I hope he uses some of the money for himself and doesn't plow it all down into Tähtivaeltaja, which I suspect he will.

Cimon Avaro said...

Totally agree that the award found the right recipent -- nothing to do with the prize itself, but the press release was overly sparse in its appreciation of Finncon, as it isn't only the largest in Western Europe, but it is definitely the largest *free access* SF convention _in the world_

There are a number of larger ones out there, but they all charge for admission!

Johanna V. said...

Cimon, you are absolutely right. Toni has always been *the* advocate for the free access Finncon. There was more about it in the application but I guess they had to shorten the text for the press release :-)

Finlandia Award Nominees 2018

The Finlandia Award nominees for this year have been announced, and there are a couple of familiar sfnal names in the mix. Magdalena Hai’s K...