[5] As a boy, Waltari witnessed the Finnish Civil War, during which his White-sided family fled to the home of his mother's aunt at Laukkoski in Pornainen, near Porvoo, which was relatively peaceful and where the Whites were predominant.

[7] In 1927, he went to Paris where he wrote his first major novel Suuri illusioni ('The Grand Illusion'), a story of bohemian life.

Suuri illusioni was a surprise hit, selling 8000 copies and turning Mika Waltari into a famous author.

He was married on 8 March 1931 to Marjatta Luukkonen, whom he had met during military service the preceding year, and on 4 January 1932 they had a daughter, Satu.

[11] Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Waltari worked as a journalist and critic, writing for a number of newspapers and magazines and travelling widely in Europe.

He published articles in the official magazine of the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity, Suomalainen Suomi ('Finnish Finland'), which was later renamed as Kanava.

He also suffered from manic-depressive psychosis and became depressed after completion of a book, sometimes to the extent of needing hospital treatment; in his manic phases he did his writing.

In 1942 he and 6 other Finnish writers visited Germany to attend the Congress of the European Writers' Union in Weimar and wrote yet more favourable coverage; a story goes however that he, being slightly drunk, refused the pocket money brought by their "patient and attentive German hosts" to their hotel by tearing it in half and throwing it away through the window.

Waltari wrote seven more historical novels, placed in various ancient cultures, among others The Dark Angel, set during the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

He was also involved in re-publishing and editing his early works, and gave long interviews to Ritva Haavikko [fi] which were published as a book.

This is partly due to the enormous fees he received from foreign editions of The Egyptian and his other books, allowing him to stop "writing to live".