Mika Waltari
Finnish writer (1908–1979)
Mika Toimi Waltari (pronounced [ˈmikɑ ˈʋɑltɑri] ; 19 September 1908 – 26 August 1979) was a Finnish writer, best known for his best-selling novel The Egyptian (Finnish: Sinuhe egyptiläinen). He was extremely productive; Besides his novels he also wrote poetry, short stories, crime novels, plays, essays, travel stories, film scripts, and rhymed texts for comic strips by Asmo Alho.
Biography
Early life
Waltari was born in Helsinki on 19 September 1908. His parents were Toimi Waltari and Olga Johansson; Toimi was a Lutheran pastor once, teaching religion in Porvoo, and Olga one of his pupils. A scandal caused by their relationship had forced them to move to Tampere and the two married on 18 November 1906. At the age of five Mika Waltari suddenly lost his father to illness on 5 July 1914, and the 25-year old Olga Waltari was left, with crucial help from Toimi's brother Toivo, to support her three children: Samuli (7 years), Mika (5 years) and Erkki (6 months). As a boy, Waltari witnessed the Finnish Civil War, during which his White-sided family fled to the home of his mother's aunt at Laukkoski in Pornainen, near Porvoo, which was relatively peaceful and where the Whites were predominant.
Later he enrolled in the University of Helsinki as a theology student, according to his uncle Toivo's wishes, but soon abandoned theology in favour of philosophy, aesthetics and literature, graduating in 1929. While studying, he contributed to various magazines and wrote poetry and stories, getting his first book Jumalaa paossa published in 1925. It was a success, selling 3000 copies despite being only 72 pages long.
The public source identifies “Mika Waltari” as finnish writer (1908–1979). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mika, Waltari and Finnish.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q193111. VIAF identifies the subject as 111008219. The Library of Congress control number is n78095466. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1908, 1979, 1906 and 1914.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mika Waltari” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.