The daughter of a factor manager and shop assistant, Eila Pennanen enrolled for studies in the University of Helsinki in 1936. For a long time she dreamed of a career as an academic researching the Finnish language. The dream never came to anything but instead Pennanen became one of the leading cultural figures of her day – writer, translator and critic.

During the Winter War and the Continuation War Pennanen worked with the Lotta organisation as a land girl in Karelia. Her studies proceeded apace however and she graduated in 1940 with a dissertation on the subject of Oscar Wilde’s writing.

Pennanen dealt with her wartime experiences in her first novel Ennen sotaa oli nuoruus (‘Before war came youth’). The novel also described students in the 1930s and how they saw the world. Alongside her writing she earned her living in the 1940s working for the WSOY publishing house. Pennanen also completed a diploma in librarianship in 1947 to supplement her income. The lot of the librarian was never to be Pennanen’s calling however, but the training she received was evident in her disciplined working habits and use of sources.

In terms of her output, Pennanen was extremely versatile. After her debut novel she wrote psychological novels and versions of Greek mythology in the 1940s. In the following decade she distinguished herself with a series of historical novels. One of these was a biographical novel Pyhä Birgitta (1954), an extremely ambitious work which was well received. It was the first treatment in fictional form of the most famous medieval woman from the Nordic region.

Pennanen became increasingly interested in describing the working and middle classes. She examined her family’s letters and diaries, which formed the inspiration for Himmun rakkaudet (‘Scraps of love’, 1971). What started out as a trilogy extended to a work in five parts, billed as Pennanen’s principal oeuvre, the Tampere saga. The series featured both Pennanen’s family and relatives, but more generally the rise of the Finnish working and middle classes in the early years of the twentieth century.

Pennanen pursued these social themes into the 1980s and 1990s, but this time in a much more pessimistic vein. She wrote up until the end of her life; indeed her last works were on her machine as drafts. Eila Penannen was one of her time’s most productive writers with some fifty publications to her name.

Sources:

• Kaarina Sala, ’Pennanen, Eila (1916–1994)’, National Biography of Finland online. Accessed April 23, 2015, via NELLI.
• Olli Mäkelä, ’Eila Pennanen’, Näytelmät.fi writers’ profiles website, Suomen Näytelmäkirjailijat ja Käsikirjoittajat ry (’Finnish playwrights and screenwriters association’. Accessed April 23, 2015.
• Pekka Tarkka, ’Eila Pennanen’, Helsingin Sanomat newspaper obituary. Accessed April 23, 2015.