Pakkala, Teuvo

(real name Theodor Oskar Frosterus; pen name Taustan Kalle). Born Apr. 19, 1862, in Oulu; died May 7, 1925, in Kuopio. Finnish writer.

Pakkala studied at the University of Helsinki from 1882 to 1890. His first published work was the autobiographical novella Reminiscences of My Childhood(1885). His social and psychological two-novel sequence, comprising On the Hill: Pictures of the Outskirts(1891) and Eisa(1894), depicts the relations between the poor people on the city outskirts and the rich of the city’s center and reveals the moral superiority of the working people. The short-story collections Children(1895) and Little People(1913) provide deep insights into the psychology of children. The satirical comedy The Bull of the Commercial Councillor(1901) and the novel A Little Life Story(1903) attack bourgeois society. Pakkala objectively portrayed the life of tar distillers in the novella Rowing Along the Oulu River(1886), and his comedies On the Logging River(1899) and The Sailors(1915) depict the life of the people.