Novel
Noitaympyrä
Not translated into English
Pentti Haanpää · 1956
Synopsis
Pate Teikka is a lumberjack in the northern forests, at the time of the Great Depression. An individualist, attached to his freedom above all else, he goes from one logging camp to another and sees at first hand what the forestry companies do to men and to woods. As the story goes on, his criticism of the exploiting companies and of capitalism grows ever sharper, and he looks for where his freedom can still find a place.
Context
Completed in June 1931, the novel found no publisher, its author being boycotted by the publishing world at the time. It appeared only in 1956, in the second volume of the complete works, devoted to unpublished writings, a year after the author's death. The scholar Pentti Karonen judged that, at the time of its writing, it would have opened a debate in society that Finland badly needed. It belongs to the strain of the author's work that depicts the years of depression and forestry work.
Who it is for
A novel, in Finnish. You need to know what forestry work was like in the north during the Depression of the thirties.
Prizes and reception
One of the two novels for which its author is best known, both published only after his death.