Berlin’s Community Energy Transmuted into Estonian Poetry by Silvia Urgas ELM 1/2023 ••• Sanna Kartau (b. 1993) is an Estonian poet and journalist whose debut collection I Vote for This War With My Body won the 2022 Betti Alver...
The Book That is a Beast of its Own by Andrei Liimets ELM 1/2023 ••• Pâté of the Apes by Tõnis Tootsen (b. 1988) is the story of Ergo, the first ape who has learned to write. As the title suggests, the s...
I Am Nature, Too By Joosep Susi ELM 2/2022 ••• Tõnis Vilu is one of the most outstanding and significant Estonian poets today. He has published eight[1] works in less than a decade, ...
Martin Algus, A Writer Not Bound by Borders By Heidi Aadma ELM 2/2022 ••• In 2007, Martin Algus had a dual victory: his problem play Janu (Thirst) and youth play Ise oled! (You Are!) received first and second plac...
Juhani Püttsepp: A Storyteller for the Defenseless By Jaanika Palm ELM 1/2022 ••• When Juhani Püttsepp published his first children’s book in 1994, Johannes the Artist’s Strange Stories, critics didn’t quite know what to ...
Martin AlgusFamily as both a dream and a curse By Johanna Ross ELM 2/2020 ••• Martin Algus (b. 1973) is known foremost as an actor, dramatist, and screenwriter. He has authored award-winning plays for over a decade an...
Joonas SildreA leap of faith with a cartoonist By Mari Laaniste ELM 2/2020 ••• Joonas Sildre’s graphic novel Between Two Sounds: Arvo Pärt’s Journey to His Musical Language was published in Estonian in the autumn of 20...
Andrus Kivirähk The favourite author of young demanding readers By Jaanika Palm ELM 1/2020 ••• Novels, novellas, plays, opinion pieces, and radio programs – Andrus Kivirähk is so active in so many different creative fields that it is ...
Jaan Kross –An Estonian ambassador By Cornelius Hasselblatt ELM 1/2020 ••• When Estonia gained independence in 1918, one of the first tasks of the new state was to tell the rest of the world that it exists. Diploma...
Andres Allan Ellmann: One of the few mystics By Lauri Sommer ELM 2/2019 ••• Andres Allan Ellmann (1964-1988) was one of the very few mystical poets in post-war Estonian poetry. I think it was in his blood – his moth...
Anti Saarknows a recipe for a great children’s book By Jaanika Palm ELM 2/2019 ••• Anti Saar (1980) is one of the most interesting and distinctive members of the younger generation of Estonian children’s writers. After gra...
Juhan Liiv:A search for the pure word By Mathura ELM 2/2019 ••• The year 2019 looms large in Estonia’s cultural calendar, marking the 150th anniversary of the Estonian Song and Dance Celebration. Its imp...
Birgita Bonde Hansen:The greatness of little things By Eva Velsker ELM 2/2019 ••• Birgita Bonde Hansen has translated eight books from Estonian and over forty from Finnish into her native Danish. Her dedicated work has no...
Jaan Kross:When prison is the price of existence By Ian Thomson ELM 2/2019 ••• Jaan Kross first came to prominence in the English-speaking world in 1992 with the publication of The Czar’s Madman (Keisri Hull), translat...
Reeli Reinaus:From competition writer to true author By Jaanika Palm ELM 2019/1 ••• Not everyone can sufficiently appreciate literary competitions and their effect on the rise of future writers. Such contests are often seen...
Ene Mihkelson: “How to become a person? How to be a person?” By Aija Sakova ELM 1/2019 ••• Once, a mistake was made, and the mistake was violenceEven afterward, people were born (poor ones?)who adapted to the mistake and lived inn...
Eduard Vilde By Toomas Haug ELM 1999/1 ••• Eduard Vilde (1865-1933) was the first Estonian prose writer to achieve classic status, and he has thereby come to be regarded as the most ...
One nature, one mind, one cloud. The ecognosis of Aare Pilv By Hasso Krull ELM 2/2018 ••• Clouds have meaning. The meaning is indistinct and floating, but is simultaneously constant and incessantly turning back. We cannot imagine ...
Eeva Park Sensuous and social By Johanna Ross ELM 2018/1 ••• A woman furtively squeezes the rounded surfaces of hard, unripe pears in her purse: she must somehow change the mind of a man who is threate...
Maimu Berg A women’s self-esteem booster By Aita Kivi ELM 2/2017 ••• The Estonian writer and politician Maimu Berg (71) mesmerizes readers with her audacity in directly addressing some topics that are even see...
Siuru in the winds of freedom By Elle-Mari Talivee ELM 2/2017 ••• Siuru, a literary group of the utmost importance in Estonia’s cultural context, was founded in May 1917. It was the second-to-last year of W...
Nikolai Baturin:A celebrated stranger By Berk Vaher ELM 1/2017 ••• How can one explain Nikolai Baturin’s works and creative identity to someone from a different and distant culture, when they are quite the m...
Paavo Matsin’s performances By Jan Kaus ELM 1/2017 ••• I last saw Paavo Matsin (1970) at a museum that honors the Estonian literary classic Eduard Vilde, where we were both scheduled to speak. We...
Our Leelo By Mare Müürsepp ELM 2/2016 ••• I’ll start with children’s own assessment. Together with third-grade students, we drafted a list of important public figures in Estonia base...
Jüri KolkSeeking the immortal soul By Kaupo Meiel ELM 2/2016 ••• Just about a year ago, Jüri Kolk, Jan Kaus, Karl Martin Sinijärv, and I were reading our own works and a pinch of others’ to a nearly full h...
Heiti Talvik:A Time Bomb By Hannes Varblane ELM 2/2008 ••• Besides being born a poet, one can also grow into a poet. One can develop into a poet on the basis of life experience and the heritage of ot...