Toivo Pekkanen

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Finnish. (October 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Finnish Wikipedia article at [[:fi:Toivo Pekkanen]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fi|Toivo Pekkanen}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Toivo Pekkanen
Born	(1902-09-10)10 September 1902 Kotka, Finland
Died	30 May 1957(1957-05-30) (aged 54) Copenhagen, Denmark

Toivo Rikhart Pekkanen (10 September 1902 Kotka, Finland – 30 May 1957 Copenhagen, Denmark) was a writer from Finland.

He was a working class writer without much formal education and is notable for being the first member of the working class to make a living from writing.^[1] The Pekkas Award has been established in his honor.

Pekkanen's breakthrough work Tehtaan varjossa (1932, in Shadow of the factory) describes realistically but dispassionately the living conditions of the working class. The hero, Samuel Oino, educates himself to get a better life - much like Pekkanen himself. His second well known book is the autobiographical Lapsuuteni (1953, My Childhood), about his poor childhood years. The Finnish Civil War is seen from the Reds' side but without bitterness.^[2]

Pekkanen was in Copenhagen, Denmark, improving his health, when he died from a brain hemorrhage.^[3]