The relationship between history and literature: a look at the work of Mika Waltari

Abstract

The following text aims to reflect on the relationship between history and literature, the latter understood as a polysemic phenomenon linked to art, aesthetics, and the social phenomena of the time. For this reason, we will take as a reference the works of Mika Waltari (1908-1979), who in his writing takes us not only through historical events but also on a journey of reflection on life, religion, and human existence, as is the case in his book Sinuhe the Egyptian, which covers the reign of Akhenaten.
In this rewriting of history, Waltari raises points of interest about elements of the past, confronting them with 20th-century man, a trajectory that reveals the vicissitudes of reality. For this reason, a qualitative descriptive-interpretative methodology is used through the reading of five works by this author.
In this context, the aim is to establish how Waltari's work proposes a way of understanding literature and history as a rewriting of reality to turn it into a history of permanent reflection on human beings, but also how the historical novel raises the question of what is meant by truth, since these are interpretative narratives in which artistic creation and the veracity of the facts are present.