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Of prose writers who had earned a name earlier, the following were still alive in the early years of independence: Juhani Aho, Kauppis-Heikki, Teuvo Pakkala, Kalle Kajander and Santeri Alkio. Their contemporaries Arvid Järnefelt and Santeri Ivalo lived longer and still published books in the 1930s, although these latter works added no new features to their careers.

Among slightly younger writers - Maila Talvio, Ilmari Kianto, Volter Kilpi, Joel Lehtonen and Maria Jotuni - the major portion of their work has been published in the independence period; among some, for example in Volter Kilpi and his portrayals of rural life, the production during the independence years has formed the creatively significant portion. Similarly, with Ilmari Kianto, the portrayal of rural life in Joseph o f Ryysyranta and his partially autobiographical Preacher's Son and The Young Poet, which were all published in the independence era, are his major work. In the same way, several of the later dramas of Maria Jotuni, such as I am Guilty and Klaus, the Master o f Louhikko, are her best. Almost all the work of the Nobel Prize winner Frans Emil Sillanpää dates from the independence period, and his novels and short stories, generally with a rural background, have been popular both at home and abroad.

Of younger prose writers the best known is Mika Waltari, author of many novels (his Sinuhe, the Egyptian was filmed in Hollywood) and plays. Toivo Pekkanen achieved fame in his portraits of working class life; Unto Seppänen found his themes in the Carelian Isthmus; and Väinö Linna has described the battlefield life of infantrymen in the Finnish wars.

Among poets who had achieved fame early in the century, several lived well into the independence period : Eino Leino, LarinKyösti, and Otto Manninen. Eino Leino's late work was an autobiographical prose effort, The Picture Book of My Life, while Manninen was both an original poet and a splendid translator, bringing forth both the Odyssey and the Iliad, Goethe's Faust and some of his lyrics, and a selection of Petöf's poetry, in Finnish translation, all in the independence era. Poet Veikko Antero Koskenniemi's most productive period happened to fall in the second decade of the century, and since his appointment as professor of Finnish Literature and its History at Turku University in 1921, his work has been primarily concerned with aesthetics and research into literary history.

In the independence period, lyric poetry has occupied a very important position in Finnish literature. In addition to the poets mentioned above, the influential names have been those of Uuno

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