Aleksis Kivi
1834–1872
Biography
Aleksis Kivi was a Finnish writer, born Alexis Stenvall in 1834, who died in 1872 at the age of thirty-eight. He worked in a country where Swedish remained the language of government and much of the educated class, while Finnish was the everyday language of most people but was seldom used for serious writing. Kivi was among the first to write prose and verse at length in Finnish. His life was marked by poverty and poor health, and he did not live to see his main book win the esteem it has today.
His reputation rests on Seitsemän veljestä (Seven Brothers), published in 1870 and widely regarded as the first major novel written in Finnish. It follows seven brothers who leave home after a quarrel, live rough in the forest, and slowly find their way back to farm, church and community. He also wrote Nummisuutarit, a play from 1864 known in English as The Heath Cobblers.
The site holds Seven Brothers, which is the book to read for anyone who wants to see where Finnish fiction began. Finland marks 10 October, his birthday, as Finnish Literature Day, and the novel remains a national classic.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
Seitsemän veljestä: kertomus
by Aleksis Kivi
Seitsemän veljestä is the first and only novel by Aleksis Kivi, the national author of Finland. It is widely regarded as the first significant novel written in Finnish and by a Finnish-speaking author, and is considered a real pioneer of Finnish realistic folklore. Some people…
Summary from Wikipedia: Seitsemän veljestä (CC BY-SA 4.0)