Joel Lehtonen

Who was Joel Lehtonen?

Joel Lehtonen was a Finnish author, translator, critic and journalist. He was born in Sääminki. His childhood was fatherless and poverty-stricken, his mother suffered from mental frailties and Joel himself was forced into paupery. Joel's foster mother supported his schooling and Lehtonen was able to study literature for a few years in the University of Helsinki, but dropped out without completing a degree.

As an author, he began as a neoromanticist, but after the Finnish Civil War his outlook transformed into deep pessimism and disenchanted scepticism.

He committed suicide by hanging himself with a rope, that had been used to wrap up a parcel of books, in November 1934.