Larni, Martti Johannes

(before 1942, M. J. Laine; pseudonyms—Aslak Nuorti and Dan Aster). Born Sept. 22, 1909, in Pakila, Helsinki. Finnish writer and journalist.

Larni is a former chairman of the Writers’ Union of Finland. He lived in the USA (1948–49 and 1951–54). He began his literary career as a poet. His early novel The Respectable Poor and Their Motley Company (1944) was a satire on bankrupt wheeler-dealers during the economic crisis of the 1930’s. The novel Impatient Passion (1945) depicts the life of workers. In 1948, Larni published a historical novel, Heaven Descended to Earth. The lampoon novel The Fourth Vertebra, or A Swindler Despite Himself (1957; Russian translation, 1959) mocks the American way of life.

The Beautiful Swineherd, or Memoirs of Economic Councillor Minna Karlsson-Kananen (1959; Russian translation, 1961) is a satirical exposé of the machinations of bourgeois businessmen, the hypocrisy of “do-gooders,” and blind adoration of the West. This Is Not Discussed Aloud (1964) is a timely satire on the internal and foreign policies of imperialist states. Larni visited the USSR a number of times, and he has been published in the Soviet press.