Mika Toimi Waltari was a Finnish writer, best known for his best-selling novel The Egyptian. He was extremely productive. Besides his novels he also wrote poetry, short stories, crime novels, plays, essays, travel stories, film scripts, and rhymed texts for comic strips by Asmo Alho.
Mika Waltari in 1934
The Egyptian is a historical novel by Mika Waltari. It was first published in Finnish in 1945, and in an abridged English translation by Naomi Walford in 1949, from Swedish rather than Finnish. Regarded as "one of the greatest books in Finnish literary history", it is, so far, the only Finnish novel to be adapted into a Hollywood film, which happened in 1954.
First edition cover (Finnish)
Pharaoh Akhenaten with his family worshipping the solar disc Aten. In the novel, Akhenaten seeks to bring about a utopia with his new religion.
War prisoners from Horemheb's time as the commander of the army
Mika Waltari, author of The Egyptian