The Egyptian
First published in the United States in 1949 and widely condemned as obscene, The Egyptian outsold every other novel published that year, and remains a classic; readers worldwide have testified to its life-changing power. It is a full-bodied re-creation of a largely forgotten era in the world’s history: the Egypt of the 14th century B.C.E., when pharaohs and gods contended with the near-collapse of history’s greatest empire. This epic tale encompasses the whole of the then-known world, from Babylon to Crete, from Thebes to Jerusalem, while centering around one unforgettable figure: Sinuhe, a man of mysterious origins who rises from the depths of degradation to become personal physician to Pharaoh Akhnaton.
”Waltari successfully combine[s] research, imagination, and the cunning of a good tale-teller in bringing the generation of Akhnaton to life.” – New York Herald Tribune
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Mika Waltari
When it comes to international repute, Mika Waltari's (1908–1979) sole competitor in Finnish literature is the national epic, Kalevala.
In Finland too the extensive and variegated production of this master
of narrative has maintained its reputation and reading audience nearly
half a century after the end of the author's most powerful creative
phase. Waltari's books continue to be read by young and old alike,
sparking interest among ordinary readers and literary scholars.
Waltari's genius emerged early on. Even as a twenty-year-old he was a
prominent figure in the Finnish literary movement known as Tulenkantajat (the Flame-bearers), which sought to throw open the windows of Finnish literature to Europe. His first novel, Suuri illusioni (1928; Grand illusion), which depicted à la Fitzgerald the lost
generation following the first world war, was a huge success in Finland.
Waltari is best known both in Finland and abroad for his vast historic novels. The first of the series was Sinuhe egyptiläinen (1945; The Egyptian,
1949), a projection of the writer's own sense of post-war pessimism
onto the life of an Egyptian physician living in the 14th century BC.
The novel became a world-wide bestseller. The Egyptian was followed by an array of
historic novels set in various epochs, all of them depicting the
problematic lot of the individual in an age of immense historic change.
All are imbued with Waltari's humanistic view of life, which in his
later work began to take on a religious cast.
Unprejudiced and skilled at adaptation, Waltari managed during his
career to experiment with most existing literary genres: his pen
yielded poetry, fables, plays, travel books, essays, horror stories,
short stories, novellas and light reading, some of which appeared in
magazines under a pen name. He was also the first notable Finnish
practitioner of detective fiction: his 'Commissioner Palmu' novels are
also known through their Finnish film versions.
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