Finnish novelist, poet and playwright, who continued the female literary tradition of Maria Jotuni, L. Onerva, and Aino Kallas. Among the central themes in Iris Uurto's work are gender relations and marriage problems. In her own time Uurto's novels were considered daring – they dealt with such taboo subjects as women's sexuality and abort. Her major novel was Ruumiin viisaus (1942), in which the author sought liberation from the shackles of intellect and dominance of patriarchy. Coming to terms with her erotic feelings, the protagonist leaves her husband.

"Ihmiset halusivat elää — ylipäänsä, maassamme, kun esimerkiksi valmisteltiin lakia, jonka mukaan heitä voitaisiin joko mestata tai myrkyttää, silloin jo sata ja satatuhattakin tuli levottomaksi. Kirjoitettiin kirjeitä, soiteltiin puhelimessa ja kerättiin anomusta elinhalua osoittaakseen. Juostiin korkeita jyrkkiä portaita kuudenteen ja seitsemänteenkin kerrokseen kysymään: Haluatteko tekin elää? Varmasti? Ja ne jotka halusivat, piirsivät musteella nimensä suurille arkeille, jotka paksuiksi kirjoiksi koottuina vietiin parlamentille." (from 'Varhaiskevättä' by Iiris Uurto, Kirjallisuuslehti, Numero 5-7, 1936, p. 137)

Iris Uurto was born Lyyli Ester Mielonen in Kerimäki, the daughter of Paavo Mielonen, a farmer, and Maria Pennanen. Iris was the fourth of eight children, not a lonely child, self-isolation came later. Her mother died early. Uurto did not like her first names, Lyyli Ester, and always wanted to be called Iiris/Iris.

Instead of going into the old time occupation of a farmer's wife, as it was expected, Uurto wanted to become a poet. At the age of 15, against the wish of her father, she moved to Helsinki, where she graduated in 1929 from a secondary school. To support herself, Uurto worked in odd jobs – as a domestic servant, papergirl, and private teacher. Her home in Punavuori, Helsinki's working-class neighbourhood, was a small corner separated by a curtain from the rest of the room.

In 1930, Uurto married Aku Rautala, also an aspiring writer, who wrote under the pseudonym of Aukusti Ripatti. The marriage was happy. Rautala was a former metal worker and agitator, member of the Communist Party of Finland. Following the defeat of the Reds in the Finnish Civil War in 1918, he had been imprisoned for five years. Rautala retired from political activities, but he portrayed Finnish working class people in Hehkuvan raudan miehiä (1930), a collection of short stories, and Kädettömien taistelu (1930), a novel. 

While at school, Uurto had contributed to the school magazine. The publication of her books Ruumiin ikävä (1930, The Longing of the Body/The Body's Yearnings) and Tulta ja tuhkaa  (1930, Fire and Ashes) by a major publishing house, Otava, marked a turning point in her life. "Mutta vaikkakin kirjailijattaren taiteellinen vaisto ei ole kaikkein hienoimpia, kuvastuu hänen romaanistaan mielestäni kuitenkin omalaatuinen elämännäkemys, joka herättää mielenkiintoa," said V. A. Koskenniemi encouragingly in his review of Ruumiin ikävä. "Iris Uurron kirjassa on sivuja ja episoodeja, joiden sisäinen totuudellisuus on kiistaton ja jotka antavat hyviä lupauksia tulevaisuuden varalle." ('Iris Uurto: Ruumiin ikävä' by V. A. K., Valvoja-Aika, Marras-joulukuu, N:o 11-12, 1930, p. 464) Uurto abandoned studies at the University of Helsinki, and devoted herself entirely to literature.

Ruumiin ikävä, called the first Finnish psychoanalytical novel, strirred much controversy. While conservative reviewers disapproved Uurto's celebration of physicality, on the other side her work responded well to debate of female sexuality. The central characters are Paula and her husband Olli Lassila. Paula is sexually unsatisfied and leaves him for another man. Years later, she meets Olli, who rapes her and she becomes pregnant. Both Paula and the baby die at the novel's end. Lauri Pohjanpää, a poet and theologian, characterized the novel as pathological and a sad sign of the times in Arvosteleva luettelo (Critical book catalog), published by the State Library Office. Pohjanpää condemned also Tulta ja tuhkaa unsuitable for public libraries. Still in the 1950s the critic and professor of literature Lauri Viljanen considered the title of the novel sensationalist, but compared Uurto's intense imagination to that of Sigrid Undset.

The early success did not make Uurto more sociable than she was. When the writer Helvi Hämäläinen met Uurto after the publication of Tulta ja tuhkaa, she handed her a copy of the book – the modernist cover was designed by Topi Vikstedt – saying that she has still plenty of writer's copies, but not so many acquaintances whom she could give it.

In 1931 Uurto suffered personal tragedy in her life: her husband died accidentally – his eye sight was poor and he was hit by tram in the midddle of the day. Unable to raise alone their child, Aku-Kimmo, only a few months old, she left him in the care of her relatives. Thereafter her contacts with him were sporadic. It was not until 1935, when Uurto published her next novel, Kypsyminen (Maturing).

A friend of the journalist Jarno Pennanen, Uurto joined the radical Hiilet (Coals) organization, which he had established with Katri Vala, Armas Heikel, E. F. Rautela and Keijo Eronen. In the newspaper Ajan Sana, a mouthpiece of the right-wing peasant movement Lapuan liike, the organization was labelled as communist. Hiilet was suppressed by a court order. Although Uurto was not active in politics, she wrote for the Marxist literature magazine Kirjallisuuslehti and opposed actively in 1934-35 death penalty. In 1936. Uurto became a member of the literary group Kiila, which was founded by such young leftist writers as Arvo Turtiainen and Elvi Sinervo. The poet Katri Vala, a member of the radical literary group Tulenkantajat (The Flame Bearers), was Uurto's neighbor for a short time.

Kypsyminen, an examination of the crisis of bourgeois values, was also translated into Swedish. Mrs. Pallas has no identity outside her relationships with her family. Her carefully built world around her home and her family is destroyed when the marriage ends. Mrs. Pallas's stepson Lauri falls in love with Maria, an extremely sensitive woman. Maria cannot reject Mr. Attila, her "benefactor" and later husband. The submissive Maria becomes a victim of her own Christian self-sacrificing character. The right-wing aesthetician, K. S. Laurila, dismissed the novel as filth and blasphemy; it smelled of Bolshevism. ('Iris Uurto (1905-1994),' Kynällä raivattu reitti: Suomalaisia kirjailijanaisia by Anne Helttunen and Annamari Saure, Helsinki: SKS kirjat, 2024, pp. 393-394)

Rakkaus ja pelko (1936) depicted lower middle-class people. Niilo Vasalli and Kaarina, Mrs. Pallas's stepdaughter, do not find balance in their relationship and on Niilo's demand, Kaarina decides to abort her pregnancy. "Eetillinen probleemi on asetettu hyvin itsenäisesti ja merkitsevästi, ja tässäkin kirjassa on se hyvä ominaisuus, että tunnelma ja tuo erikoinen draamallisuus loppua kohti kiihtyy ja kasvaa." (R. K. [Rafael Koskimies], in 'Kirjallisuuskatsaus,' Valvoja-Aika, No, 10, 1936, p.431) Timanttilakien alla (1938) reflected Uurto's changed political views and separation from her earlier radical activities. The protagonist is Peter, Nord, who has joined a group of young writers. He falls in love with Asta, the daughter of an executed Red Guard officer. Asta's husband is imprisoned. She leaves Nord and commits suicide with her new lover. Nord travels abroad to end his life. Katri Vala praised the work in the leftist magazine Tulenkantajat, saying that the thin book contained more thoughts than many overwhelmingly heavier ones in appearance.

In the late 1930s, Uurto wrote dramas without much theatrical success. Her true-life play about the murder of four children in Sievi by their parents, Leonard ja Alma Saukko, was rejected by theaters across the country as being too tragic. "Olen kirjoittanut näytelmän, siinä on koko viime vuoden työni . . . Se on hyljätty näyttämöltä aiheensa tähden. Sanotaan: "Liian järkyttävä", "Tuota aihetta emme uskalla ottaa." Draaman muotoa ja kehittelyä vastaan ei ole esitetty huomautuksia. Aiheen sain sanomalehtiuutisista, tuo tunnettu Sievin murhenäytelmä." (Iris Uurto in an interview, 'Teatteri pelkää murhenäytemää,' Kirjallisuuslehti, Nro. 1 Maalikuussa 1938, p. 51) Satu sankarista was not produced at the National Theatre until 1945. This pacifist play, set in the ancient Italy, depicted the conquest of Veii, an Etruscan city, which was taken after long siege by the dictator Camillus.

"Lea katsahti hänen pahastuneisiin hartioihinsa, kuljeskeli edestakaisin laitellen astioita pöytään ja nyrpisteli nenäänsä: En voi itselleni mitään. En ole aina sama. Toisina hetkinä pidän hänestä oikein kovasti, toisinaan en voi sietää hänen kättään lähelläni. Enkä minä voi valehdella. Jos itse valehtelisin, ei ruumiini kuitenkaan koskan valehtele." (from Ruumiin viisaus: romaani by Iris Uurto, Helsinki: Otava, 1942) There are similarities between Uurto's and D. H. Lawrence's understanding of the natural balance between the mind and the body. Ruumiin viisaus (Wisdom of the Body), a marriage novel, was set in the literary world. An aspiring writer, Elias Aro, marries Lea, an office employee, but nearly loses her before he realizes that one can deceive the mind but not the body. "Niin on ruumis ja ihminen kokonaisuudessaan myöskin suurempi neroudessaan kuin sen järkevin osa, aivot, yksinään." (Ibid., p. 326) Illustratively, one of the characters, the mathematical genius Siiri Halava whose instincts are blocked by too much thought, is bound by her logic and commits suicide.

Later the novel was published in reworked form in Uurto's selected works from 1965 under the title Villit henget (Wild Souls). In Finnish "ikävä" means both "longing" and "sadness"; Uurto originally wanted to refer to sad things. She rewrote also her other books. Kypsyminen was retitled as Rouva Pallas (Mrs. Pallas), the central character changed from Lauri Pallas to her.

Tuula Spinkkilä argued in her doctoral thesis that Uurto challenged the patriarchal society and its literary institutions with her strong emphasis on the human body. According to Spinkkilä, Uurto's work tells about the sexual difference and endless differences among women, about the importance of human and more especially of female corporeality, and the potential wisdom of the female body. But the battle of sexes is never solved. Patriarchal culture is equally suffocating for men as it is for women. ('Elämän pitäisi olla toisenlaista': Iris Uurto ja sukupuolten sota by Tuula Spinkkilä, Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2000)

From the late 1930s, Uurto did not participate in Kiila's activities. The writer Jarno Pennanen criticized her for passivity. During the Continuation War (1941-44) Uurto was one of the few writers who refused to help, officially or unofficially, the war efforts. In a pacifist poem she wrote: ""Tuhottu vihollisen laiva! Riemuitkaa!" / Tuhottu laiva! Kesken valtameren / ui jonkun äidin pojat onnettomat, / se elää sais, ken meren yli uisi." (from 'XXXVI,' in Sininen lyhty, 1946; quoted in Runon vuosikymmenet: valikoima suomalaista runoutta vuosilta 1897-1947, edited by Anna-Maria Tallgren-Kaila and Aaro Hellaakoski, Porvoo: Werner Söderström, 1962, p. 406) Uurto mostly wrote in free verse. Sudet (1944) received a lukewarm review from V. A. Koskeniemi (Valvoja, Vol. 23, 1945), but Olof Enckell in Hufvudstadsbladet (25.5.1945) praised her rhythmic form.

After the war Uurto stated that she is not going to participate in political activities or join any literary group – she is only a member of humankind. When Kiila began to issue a new cultural magazine, 40-luku, edited by Arvo Turtiainen, she was mentioned among the contributors, along with Aaro Hellaakoski, Helvi Hämäläinen, Yrjö Kallinen, Hertta Kuusinen, and many others. However, some of them never wrote for the magazine.

Final break with Kiila came with the novel Joonas ei välittänyt (1950), a "roman à clef" of the adventures of Joonas Tela (Uurto's alter ego) as the director of the bourgeois Suomi Theatre and the tangled relationships between Mai, Aaro and Eino Ahava, based on the real life triangle of Elvi Sinervo, her husband Mauri Ryömä, and Jarno Pennanen. The targets of her satire were Kiila, Kirjallisuuslehti, and Suomen Työväen Näyttämö (Workers' Stage), her old comrades, and their love affairs, partly based on real life.

Uurto never remarried, but she had a serious love affair which ended about 1950. In her later years Uurto, a shy and sensitive person, increasingly chose seclusion. She held the conviction that her books are her biography and did not give interviews. Before her death, Uurto destroyed all personal papers. "Oikea kirjailijan elämäkerta ovat hänen teoksensa. Ja varsinaisesti tahdon ainoastaan siinä muodossa jättää elämäkertani ihmisille." (Uuno Kailaasta Aila Meriluotoon: suomalaisten kirjailijain elämäkertoja, edited by Toivo Pekkanen and Reino Rauanheimo, Porvoo: Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö, 1947, p. 273)

In the 1930s, Uurto traveled in Estonia, Sweden, France and Italy, and in the late 1940s she visited England, France, and Switzerland. "Nään koko maailman, en rajoja, / rakastan koko maailmaa, en puolta, / en nurkkausta vain, en isänmaata." (I see the whole world, not the borders, / I love the whole world, not a half of it, / not a corner only, my native country.) (from Ihana lyhty by Iris Uurto, Helsinki: Otava, 1946) After Ihana lyhty Uurto changed her publisher from Otava to WSOY, which published two of her novels, Joonas ei välittänyt and Kapteenin naiset.

Kukkiva jakarandapuu (The Flowering Jacaranda Tree), a collection of poems, remained in her desk drawer. Uurto lived in the late 1950s some time at the Divine Life Society's ashram in Rishikesh, India. After a nervous breakdown, she went to Switzerland for treatment.

The last period of her life, Uurto spent in an old-age home. She refused to have visitors. To her son she said: "No. I think it's better that we don't meet or write. You live your own life. I live mine." (quoted in 'Iris Uurto (1905-1994),' Kynällä raivattu reitti: Suomalaisia kirjailijanaisia, p. 397) Iris Uurto died on April 1, 1994. Aku-Kimmo Ripatti died before her, in February in the same year. Uurto received the State literary award four times (1936, 1942, 1944, 1969). 

Den brinnande ön (1957, Puut juuriltaan), Uurto's last book, a war novel, appeared first in Swedish, translated by the writer Bo Carpelan. The Finnish, reworked edition, was published by Otava in 1968. Uurto examined the psychological effects of war on the soldiers and the experiences of women. At the end of the story Allan, after spending years at the front, admits that he cannot live the same inner life than before the war. Again Uurto refers to the inner voice of her characters, the voice of nature. Parnasso, the most important literary magazine in Finland, did not review the book. Puut juuriltaan is considerd one of Uurto's best novels but an uncharacteristic work for her.

Uurto remained distant to her son, Aku-Kimmo Ripatti (1931-1994), who also became a writer. Mostly she focused on her writing and her son lived in Kerimäki in her childhood home. Later Ripatti worked as a teacher and published novels, poems, and pamphlets of the life in Finland's developing areas in Kainuu. Ripatti's documentary novel Iris (1988) was about Uurto's childhood in Kerimäki. "Iris is my mother," Ripatti wrote. "However, I don't know her." As an anecdote Ripatti tells, that Uurto wanted to buy in the early 1980s the Punkaharju Ridge, a beautiful natural monument in eastern Finland, when she began to believe that its trees will be cut down. Ripatti's other works include Luodemailta (1962), Kolmen vuoden lumet (1964), Siirtomaasuomi (1970), Sikojen juhla (1970), Kyösti Sorsan opintie (1972), Syrjämaa (1974), Tervahanhi (1974), En sano muuta (1986), Arki soi (1987).

For further reading: 'Unennäkijän tosiasiat: Iris Uurron arkisto affektiivisena kokemuksena ja eettis-metodologisena haasteena' by Tuukka Salonen, in Tutkimuspolkuja yksityisarkistoihin: aineistot historian, kulttuurin ja kirjallisuuden tutkimuksessa, edited by Hanna Karhu, Katri Kivilaakso and Viola Parente-Čapková (2024); 'Iris Uurto (1905-1994),' in Kynällä raivattu reitti: Suomalaisia kirjailijanaisia by Anne Helttunen and Annamari Saure (2024); Säröjä moraalisessa harmoniassa: Iris Uurron romaanin Ruumiin ikävä saama vastaanotto vuoden 1930 seksuaalimoraalisessa ilmapiirissä by Ella Ahola (2023); "Ei ole välttämätöntä minun omistaa häntä, uskotteko?": Laurin ja Marian suhde Iris Uurron romaanissa Kypsyminen Emmanuel Levinasin etiikan näkökulmasta by Anni Suni (2023); Mitta ja rytmi Iris Uurron lyriikassa by Ulla-Riikka Uurto (pro gradu, 2014); Elämän pitäisi olla toisenlaista by Tuula Spinkkilä (2000); 'Syvään uurrettua – Iris Uurto naiskirjailijana 1930-luvun kulttuurisella kentällä' by Ulla-Maija Juutila, in Ajan paineessa: kirjoituksia 1930-luvun suomalaisesta aatemaailmasta, ed. by Pertti Karkama, Hannele Koivisto (1999); 'Ruumiillisuus, seksuaalisuus ja naisen identiteetti Iris Uurron romaanituotannossa' by Ulla-Maija Juutila, Sananjalka, Vol 35, Nro 1 (1993); Suurten henkien jäljillä by Liisa Vepsäläinen (1991); Iris by Aku-Kimmo Ripatti (1988); Kapinalliset kynät: itsenäisyysajan työväenliikkeen kaunokirjallisuus II-III by Raoul Palmgren (1984); 'Iris Uurto' by Toini Havu, in Valitut teokset by Iris Uurto (1970); 'Iris Uurto' by Aarne Laurila, in Suomen kirjallisuus V, ed. by Annamari Sarajas (1965); 'Naisen näkökulmasta' by Lauri Viljanen in Lyyrillinen minä (1959); 'Iris Uurto' by Unto Kupiainen, in Iris Uurto's Valitut teokset (1957); Uuno Kailaasta Aila Meriluotoon: suomalaisten kirjailijain elämäkertoja, edited by Toivo Pekkanen and Reino Rauanheimo (1947)

Selected works:

• Ruumiin ikävä, 1930 [The Longing of the Body] (published in 1965 in Kootut teokset as Villit henget)
• Tulta ja tuhkaa: novelleja ja runoja, 1930 [Fire and Ashes]
• Kypsyminen, 1935 [Maturing] (published in 1965 in Kootut teokset as Rouva Pallas)
  - Farväl Maria (övers. av Olof Enckell, 1936)
• Rakkaus ja pelko, 1936 [Love and Fear]
  - Den tappra kärleken (övers. av Olof Enckell, 1937)
  - Armastus ja kartus (tõlk. H. Lepik, 1963)
• Timanttilakien alla, 1938
• Ruumiin viisaus, 1942 [Wisdom of the Body]
  - Kroppens visdom (övers. av. Th. Warburton, 1943)
• Sudet, 1944 [Wolfs] (poetry)
• Satu sankareista, 1945 [A Tale about a Hero] (play)
• Suomalainen kohtalonnäytelmä. Puolustuspuhe ja hyljätyt murhenäytelmät, 1945 [A Finnish Play on Destiny] (play)
• Ihana lyhty, 1946 [The Wonderful Lantern] (poetry)
• Joonas ei välittänyt, 1950 [Joonas Did Not Care]
• Kapteenin naiset, 1952 [The Captain's Women]
• Den brinnande ön, 1957 [The Burning Island] (övers. av Bo Carpelan)
• Valitut teokset, 1957 [Selected Works] (introduction by Unto Kupiainen)
• Valitut teokset, 1965-66 (3 vols.)
• Puut juuriltaan, 1968 [The Uprooted Trees] (reworked from Palava saari / Den brinnande ön)
• Äiti, 1970 [Mother] (play)
• Valitut teokset, 1970 (introduction by Toini Havu)
• Ruumiin ikävä, 2016 (E-kirja)