Paasilinna, Arto

Arto Paasilinna was born in Kittilä in the Finnish part of Lapland. His father died from pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 46. Arto was then only eight years old. The youngest sister was buried in the same grave as the father at the same time, after having been struck by meningitis. The large family was at that time living in a log cabin in Tervola. There were two rooms, one for the animals and one for the family. It was hard work in the forest and on the little farm for the many children of the Paasilinna family, a not very unusual situation in the Finnish woodlands of the postwar period.