Paavo Haavikko

Paavo Haavikko (born Jan. 25, 1931, Helsinki, Fin.—died Oct. 6, 2008, Helsinki) was a Finnish humanist poet, novelist, and dramatist whose work is modernistic, experimental, and linguistically innovative.

With his first collection of poems, Tiet etäisyyksiin (1951; “The Roads That Lead Far Away”), Haavikko demonstrated a rare command of rhythm and image in his virtuoso handling of the language. In his next collection, Tuuliöinä (1953; “In Windy Nights”), he used the wind as the central metaphor for contemporary anxiety and alienation, and in Synnyinmaa (1955; “Fatherland”) and Lehdet lehtiä (1958; “Leaves Are Leaves”) he explores the creative process and finds it is the task of the poet to interpret humankind’s common suffering. His discussion of the art of poetry continues in the complex poems of Talvipalatsi (1959; The Winter Palace).

In the 1960s Haavikko turned away from the expression of aesthetic concerns and began to incorporate social criticism into his novels and plays. In Yksityisiä asioita (1960; “Private Matters”), he castigates the prevailing mentality during the civil war (1918) in Finland. His collected short stories, Lasi Claudius Civiliksen salaliittolaisten pöydällä (1964; “The Glass on the Table of the Claudii Civilii Conspirators”), constitute an important social document with stylistic links to the contemporary French nouveau roman (antinovel), and his collected stage works, Näytelmät (1978; “Plays”), lean toward the theatre of the absurd. His later works include Ikuisen rauhan aika (1981; “Era of Eternal Peace”), Viisi pientä draamallista tekstiä (1981; “Five Small Dramatic Texts”), and Rauta-aika (1982; “Iron Age”).