Erno Paasilinna was a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 writer and journalist. He received several literary prizes, the most notable being the Finlandia Prize

Finlandia Prize

The Finlandia Prize is the most prestigious literary award in Finland by the Finnish Book Foundation. It is awarded annually to the author of the best novel written by a Finnish citizen , children's book , and non-fiction book...

 in 1984 for his collection of essays Yksinäisyys ja uhma ("Loneliness and Defiance"). His works have been translated into Estonian

Estonian language

Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...

, Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

, Swedish

Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...

, Norwegian

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...

 and Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

.

Erno Paasilinna has been titled the "national cynic laureate" and "official state critic" due to his uncompromising views and lack of admiration for his human fellows. His incisive analysis of power and the powerful shook the fundaments of Finnish society, but were widely recognized to be impartial, swiping those ideologically close to his heart as heavily as those whose ideology was diametrically opposed to his own.

The writers Reino

Reino Paasilinna

Reino Paasilinna is a Finnish politician and Member of the European Parliament. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Finland, which is part of the Party of European Socialdemocrats, and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.Reino Paasilinna was...

, Mauri and Arto Paasilinna

Arto Paasilinna

Arto Tapio Paasilinna is a Finnish writer, being a former journalist turned comic novelist. One of the most successful novelists of Finland, he has won a broad readership outside of Finland in a way few other Finnish authors have before...

are his brothers.