author
Juhana Kokko
1856–1926
A Finnish teacher and novelist who wrote under the pen name Kyösti, he brought rural life and social questions into fiction in a direct, readable way. His work is remembered as part of the rise of Finnish-language popular literature in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
2 Audiobooks
Räisäspoika
by Juhana Kokko
Kruunun metsissä
by Juhana Kokko
About the author
Born in Liminka on March 12, 1856, and later dying in Oulu on September 15, 1926, Juhana Kokko was a Finnish writer, teacher, and public educator. He is often described as a kansankirjailija—a writer for ordinary readers—and he also used the pen name Kyösti.
Kokko's fiction is closely tied to life in northern Finland. His best-known works include Kölliskö (1887), and later commentary on his writing notes that his stories moved toward social realism, taking on difficult subjects from everyday village life and religious life.
Alongside writing, he worked as a schoolteacher, which fits well with his reputation as a popular educator. Even today, he is remembered less as a distant literary monument than as a writer who tried to speak plainly to common readers about the world they knew.