Aleksis Kivi sits in a pensive pose in front of the beautiful theatre in Helsinki.
He was a Finnish national writer, playwright, poet and novelist. His major work, Seven Brothers, was written in 1870. He was the first professional writer publishing his works in the Finnish language.
He was born in 1834 in Nurmijarvi to a poor family. He went to school in Helsinki at the age of 12, boarding at the home of a prison warder.
Seven Brothers took him 10 years to write and was criticised because his characters were considered too wild and not modelled on the idealised picture of rural people.
He died in poverty at the age of 38. I wonder what he would have thought of his lovely sculpture.
On my last visit someone had added a red nose…not quite in the right spot.
Beautiful Helsinki 