Mika Waltari was born in Helsinki in 1908. His father died when he was six, so the boy’s education was put in the hands of his mother Olga Johansson and his uncle Toivo. Waltari’s childhood circumstances had a strong influence on his writing. Waltari’s literary breakthrough came with his fifth work, a first novel called Suuri Illusioni (‘My great illusion’, 1928)

Although he is best known for his literary output, Mika Waltari was also an extremely prolific playwright and screenwriter. Panu Rajala states that Waltari’s dramatic works would have been enough for any playwright’s life’s work. Waltari had a complex love-hate relationship with the theatre.

The Torchbearers were a group of writers and artists active in the 1920s. Their unifying factor was the literary association Nuoren Voiman Liitto ('Young force association', link in Finnish) which published the poetry album Tulenkantajat ('The torchbearers’) in 1922.  It was here that Mika Waltari met some of the most…