
Arto Paasilinna
Writing
Known For

An elderly lady is visited each month by her good-for-nothing nephew who relieves her of her regular pension. When he appears again one winter day accompanied by two hideous but eager pals who start roasting a freshly captured piglet on her back lawn before maltreating her cat and retreating to sleep in the sauna, she can no longer stand it. So at dawn she packs up to flee into town, where she moves in with an old friend who gives her consolation and advice.
La Douce Empoisonneuse

A reporter who's soon to receive the Journalist of the Year Award hits a young hare on his way home. He gets out of the car to see if it's ok, but the hare runs off deeper into the forest, taking him on adventure of self-discovery.
Vatanen's Hare

Young advertising executive Vatanen suddenly quits his job and his whole life in Helsinki, and decides to spend a while in the Finnish wilderness. A wounded hare hit by a car becomes his travel companion. Together they find reclusion in the Finnish Lapland, soon to be disturbed by a noisy group of foreign tourists and their pretentious Finnish hosts. When the hare gets ill and needs to see a vet, Vatanen must return to the city and finally face the choice between his new and former life
The Year of the Hare

Two men, who both have tried to commit a suicide, decide to found a "Let's do it together"-suicide association to help the self-destructive people to succeed in their goal. Soon they have a bus load of candidates and together they start a bus tour in order to find a suitable place for the mass suicide.
Hurmaava joukkoitsemurha

Sammeli from Näljängä and Einari from Haataja, who were hunting bears, encounter Natalia, a cow that has crossed the eastern border. In the name of friendship between neighboring countries, Natalia is asked to return to the Soviet Union.
Natalia

An alcoholic major Remes gets frustrated in the barracks and asks for a leave of absence. It is agreed to on the condition that Remes conducts one more military exercise. During that, Remes runs into a cunning career criminal Oiva Juntunen, who has hidden gold bars in the forest.
Hirtettyjen kettujen metsä

The main character is a miller, who sometimes acts strangely but is otherwise a goodhearted hardworking honest man. He sometimes keeps the villagers up all night by howling. Finally the villagers decide that the miller has to be committed into a mental hospital, where the hero does not have to spend too much time until he escapes. The miller takes to the woods near his home but there he is constantly harassed by the chief of the police with his posse.
Ulvova mylläri
Vatanen has had enough of his job, his wife, his whole urban lifestyle. One day, without warning, he leaves everything behind and heads out into the wilderness accompanied by a rabbit he found on the side of the road.
Jäniksen vuosi

The friendship story between an elderly man and a young man and their journey to meet an old front-line veteran who has decided to settle his score with society.
Elämä lyhyt, Rytkönen pitkä

Rauno Rämekorpi is celebrating his 60th birthday. He has been awarded the title of Industrial Counsellor, and the company's management has commissioned a biography of him. After the celebrations, the industrial counsellor orders a taxi to take the flowers brought by the guests to the landfill. However, taxi driver Seppo Sorjonen convinces Rämekorpi to change his mind – the flowers are taken to a few female friends instead.
Kymmenen riivinrautaa

Bridge engineer Akseli Jaatinen arrives to stir up the lives of the inhabitants of a small Finnish village. Jaatinen is well-liked at the bridge construction site, but he quickly finds himself clashing against the local decision-makers. The bridge engineer is also popular with the ladies and, being a man of energy, he manages to take care of several of his admirers at once.