Kalle Paatalo was born in Taivalkoski (Lappland) on November 11, 1919.

Kalle Paatalo provides an expansive picture of the rural way of life. He has written a very popular autobiographical novel series, The Northeastern Land (1960) consisting of five books, where he describes the harsh everyday life, religious movement, poverty, and problems of four families living in the rural area. The Last Logging (1966) and The Backwoods Rambler (1968) both were descriptions of a young man, Vikke Nilo, who probably was the writer himself as a young man.

In 1971 he began writing an autobiographical series, Ii-River (pronounced like E-river), where he verbally paints a picture of himself and the agrarian society, which has changed from the Great Depression to present days. The 25th part of this series was published last year (1996). Paatalo writes slowly and pedantically describes people, places and events. He doesn't write a traditional documentary but more or less history that hasn't been written as accurately as he does.

Kalle Paatalo is one of Finland's best selling author. His writings have sold over 3,000,000 copies, which by the Finnish scales is an enormous amount of books sold. Paatalo is known as modest man, who hasn't changed his life style. He lives in the countryside in a house he built himself. This is not surprising since his first profession was that of a construction engineer.

These pictures show covers of his books. 

Ii River. 

The Last Logging. 

The Northeast Land. 

For more information on Kalle Paatolo check out these websites:

Paatalo websites not available at this time.