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Humility - passion
The miniature stamp sheet dedicated to Mika Waltari (1908-1979) has two €0.80 stamps. One bears a black-and-white photograph of the writer and the words Nöyryys - intohimo (Humility - passion). The other shows a cover illustration by graphic artist Eeli Jaatinen for a detective novel published in 1940 Komisario Palmun erehdys (Inspector Palmu’s Mistake. The miniature sheet was designed by Päivi Vainionpää.
 Waltari is among the foremost Finnish authors of the 20th century. His extensive oeuvre includes novels and poetry, fairy stories and prose, as well as travelogues, plays and film scripts. He made his international breakthrough with his novel The Egyptian. A major film of its time was made of the book in Hollywood in 1954. The Egyptian and Inspector Palmu’s Mistake have often won polls of favourite books in Finland, most recently this year. A stamp of The Egyptian was issued in 1997 [Scott 1056, shown] and another of Waltari’s comic strip Kieku ja Kaiku was issued in 1996 [Scott 1021].
Works by Waltari have so far been translated into 41 languages. Of these, 36 are listed in the margins of the miniature sheet.
Finnish Post
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