Haanpää, Pentti

Born Oct. 14, 1905, in Piippola; died there Sept. 30, 1955. Finnish writer.

Haanpää is the author of the collections of short stories about working people Along the Highway (1925) and The Wind Blows Over Them (1927). The collection Parade Ground and Barracks (1928) expresses his protest against the severe training in the army. Important social problems are presented in the novels Vicious Circle (1931; Russian translation, 1961) and The Masters and the Shadows of the Masters (1935; Russian translation, 1956) and in the historical novel Flour (1949; Russian translation, 1956). The antimilitarist novel The Case of Sergeant Major Sato was written in 1935 and published in 1956. Antifascist ideas fill Haanpää’s novella The Boots of Nine Soldiers (1945; Russian translation, 1970).