Background
Manninen was born in Kangasniemi as a farmer"s son.
Manninen was born in Kangasniemi as a farmer"s son.
Along with Eino Leino in the early 20th century, he is considered as a pioneer of Finnish poetry. Manninen translated the works of Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Heine, Ibsen, Petőfi and Runeberg into Finnish. He was one of the ten children of Topias and Matilda Manninen.
After passing the matriculation examination in 1892, he was admitted into the University of Helsinki, receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1897.
From 1898-1899 he was an assistant editor of the periodical Valvoja. His early translations of Heinrich Heine were published in Koitar, the student magazine of the university, in 1897.
Parts of Heine"s Saksanmaa (Deutschland Ein Wintermärchen) were published in Valvoja in 1900 while the complete translation was published in 1904. From 1907–1909 Manninen worked for the Finnish National Theatre.
They had three sons, Antero (1907–2000), Sulevi (1909-1936), and Mauno (1915–1969).
From the 1910s on, the Manninen family spent their summers on the island of Kotavuori in Puulavesi, where they built a house. In the serene environment of Kotavuori, Manninen spent most of his time writing poems and completing his translations. Manninen died in Helsinki on 6 April 1950 after a short period of illness.
In 1954, his statue by the sculptor Wäinö Aaltonen was installed in Mikkeli.
Manninen was a member of editorial staff of several non-fiction books, including an encyclopedia named Tietosanakirja (1909-1921), and the chairperson of the National Council for Literature for nearly fifteen years. During the Civil War (1918), Manninen supported the legal government and was a member of the Civil Guards.