Throughout his time at Finlayson, Väinö Linna read avidly.
In spite of rejection, the idea of a novel, which would depict ordinary soldiers' views on war, would later lead him to write The Unknown Soldier.Īfter the war, Linna got married and started writing whilst working at the mills during the day. However, failure to get the notes published led him to burn them. Already at this point Linna knew that writing would be his preferred occupation. In addition to being a squad-leader, he wrote notes and observations about his and his unit's experiences. The Second World War had broken out, and for Linna's part it meant participation in the Continuation War (1941–44). In 1940, Linna was conscripted into the army. Typical of his generation, the adolescent author-to-be moved from the countryside to a developing city in search of industrial labour which he found at the Finlayson textile mills. After working as a lumberjack and a farm hand at the same manor where his mother had worked, Linna moved to Tampere in 1938. The author's education was, however, limited to six years at a public school which he finished in the mid-1930s. As a child, Linna loved adventure novels which he borrowed from the local library. Despite his background, Linna's interest in literature began early on. Thus his mother had to support the entire family by working at a nearby manor.
However, Linna's father, a butcher, died when Väinö Linna was only eight years old. He was the seventh child of Viktor (Vihtori) Linna (1874–1927) and Johanna Maria (Maija) Linna (1888–1972). Väinö Linna was born in Urjala in the Pirkanmaa region. He shot to immediate literary fame with his third novel, Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Soldier, published in 1954), and consolidated his position with the trilogy Täällä Pohjantähden alla (Under the North Star, published in 1959–1963 and translated into English by Richard Impola). Väinö Linna was one of the most influential Finnish authors of the 20th century.
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