Jaakko Syrjä (7 March 1926 – 22 May 2022) was a Finnish writer. He served as the president of the

Union of Finnish Writers The Union of Finnish Writers () is an ideological and professional organization representing fiction authors writing in Finnish. The organization was founded in 1897 and now has around 770 members. It is led by an elected board consisting of 8 memb ...

from 1975 to 1980.

Biography

Syrjä was born in

Pälkäne Pälkäne () is a municipalities of Finland, municipality of Finland. It is part of the Pirkanmaa regions of Finland, region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which . The population density is . Onkkaala is the adm ...

, the son of Martta née Niemiö and Juho Nestori Syrjä, who were both cattle traders and

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer ...

s. At the age of seven, he and his family moved from Hirsilä to

Korkeakoski Korkeakoski () is a village and administrative center of the Juupajoki municipality in Pirkanmaa, Finland. It has a population of 822. It is located along Highway 58 between Orivesi and Kärsämäki, and the Tampere–Haapamäki railway runs thro ...

. Syrjä then moved to

Tampere Tampere is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Pirkanmaa. It is located in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Tampere is approximately , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately . It is the most populous mu ...

, where he worked for the railroad equipment and

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

manufacturing company Lokomo. In 1953 his story "There came the Bear" won the Best Short Story prize in the Pirkanmaa Writing Competition. Jaakko-Syrja-Kirsi-Kunnas-1965

He later worked as an

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

for

Gummerus Gummerus Oy is a Finnish media group that was founded in Jyväskylä in 1872 by Karl Jacob Gummerus. In 1985, it moved its headquarters from Jyväskylä to Helsinki. In 2008, it had an annual turnover of EUR 26,9 million. Annually, ...

and WSOY. In 1957, Syrjä married poet and children's literature author

Kirsi Kunnas Kirsi Marjatta Kunnas (14 December 1924 – 8 November 2021) was a Finnish poet, children's literature author and translator into Finnish. Her oeuvre consists of poems, fairy tale books, drama, translations (e.g. Lewis Carroll, Federico Garcí ...

. Syrjä was a member of the

from 1970 to 1975, and president from 1975 to 1980. He worked with

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

Kalle Päätalo Kaarlo (Kalle) Alvar Päätalo (11 November 1919 – 20 November 2000) was a Finnish novelist, the most popular Finnish writer in the 20th century. His ''Iijoki'' series, comprising 26 novels, is one of the longest autobiographical works ever ...

adapting works for publication. Syrjä was a member of the Väinö Linna Society. Syrjä won the City of Tampere Literature Prize three times from 1956 to 1988. He also was a winner of the

Thanks for the Book Award The Thanks for the Book Award, (''Kiitos kirjasta -mitali'' in Finnish and ''Tack för boken-medaljen'' in Swedish), is a Finnish literary prize that has been presented since 1966 by the Organization of the Booksellers’ Association of Finland (Kir ...

in 1966. Syrjä was nominated for the

Finlandia Prize The Finlandia Prize (; ) is a set of Finnish literary prizes awarded by the Finnish Book Foundation to "celebrate reading and highlight new Finnish first-rate literature." Considered the most prestigious in the nation, they are awarded annually in ...

in 1988. He was a winner of the Väinö Linna Prize in 2005. In 2016, Syrjä was awarded the Pirkanmaa Art Prize by the Pirkanmaa Arts Council. Kunnas died in her sleep at home in

Ylöjärvi Ylöjärvi () is a town in Finland, located in the Pirkanmaa region. It lies to the west of the regional capital, Tampere. The population of Ylöjärvi is approximately , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately . It is the m ...

on 8 November 2021, at the age of 96. Six months later, on 22 May 2022, at a care home in Ylöjärvi, Syrjä died of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

, also at the age of 96.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Syrjä, Jaakko 1926 births 2022 deaths People from Pälkäne Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland 20th-century Finnish male writers Thanks for the Book Award winners