Waltari, Mika Toimi

Born Sept. 19, 1908, in Helsinki. Finnish writer; member of the Academy of Sciences of Finland.

Waltari graduated from the department of philosophy of the University of Helsinki. In 1925 he published the collection of verse Flight From God. His novel The Great Illusion (1928) described middle-class youth’s dissatisfaction with life. In the novels The Town of Despair and Joy (1936), A Stranger Comes to the House (1937), and From Father to Son (1942), Waltari shows the contradictions of the capitalistic town. He is the author of the historical novels Sinuhe the Egyptian (1945) and Turms the Immortal (1955). His novels Feliks the Happy (1958) and State Secret (1959) are imbued with mysticism. In 1964 he published the novel Enemies of Humanity, which is about Rome at the time of Nero.