Who Could Hold All the World’s Beauty? by Joonas Hellerma ELM 2/2023 ••• The reception of Emil Tode’s Border State (1993) was shaped by multiple elements that were novel to Estonian literature of the time, i...
A Night to Remember by Maximilian Murmann ELM 1/2023 ••• On New Year’s Eve a man straggles his way through Stockholm. Although he has been living in the city for quite some time, the narrator...
Now, That’s Certainly Not Literature by Indrek Koff ELM 1/2023 ••• Writer Indrek Koff takes a look at literature’s borderlands and asks what peculiarities might arise there. For some reason, I’ve always ...
Translators: The Barn Swallows of Estonian Literature By Katja Novak ELM 2/2022 ••• Katja Novak’s overview of the 2022 Translators’ Seminar organized by the Estonian Literature Center in Käsmu, Estonia from June 10th to 15t...
War and the Impossibility of the Great Writer by Maarja Kangro ELM 2/2022 ••• On May 1st, not a single air-raid siren went off all day in Lviv. My colleague Ostap Slyvynskiy and I were sitting at a sidewalk table at K...
How Are We to Survive? With Jaan Kaplinski in the Anthropocene By Marek Tamm ELM 1/2022 ••• Ecological thinking lies at the core of Jaan Kaplinski’s (1941–2021) diverse catalogue. His poetry, prose, essays, and general outlook on l...
Jaan Kaplinski: Questions, Answers, and Other Thought-Rhymes By Märt Väljataga ELM 1/2022 ••• Jaan Kaplinski wrote nearly 2,000 poems in several styles and languages over eighty years. The first in his official canon is a ballad titl...
On Life and Love, Continuously By Jan Kaus ELM 1/2022 ••• In Estonia, an interesting cultural discussion is underway, prompted by a call to celebrate Estonian Literature Day. The proposed date is J...
On the Openness of Literature By Jan Kaus ELM 2/2020 ••• It isn’t a stretch to assert that literature is an art of solitude. This especially true in comparison with other creative practices: many ...
Memories of Jaan Kross By Mati Sirkel, Maima Grīnberga and Tiina Ann Kirss ELM 1/2020 ••• A speech by Mati Sirkel on Jaan Kross’s 80th birthday celebration at the Estonian Drama Theater, 2000Honorable Jaan!If you would allow me t...
A path a quarter-century long By Krista Kaer ELM 1/2020 ••• A very long time ago, so long now that it came as a great surprise even to myself, Piret Viires and I were the original editors of Estonian...
Veronika KivisillaA perfect day By Veronika Kivisilla ELM 2/2019 ••• A perfect day naturally begins early in the morning. That is my time! I hope I never learn to sleep in! I’d never exchange the promisin...
EWOD: A major new ongoing Estonian literary-cultural project By Sven Vabar ELM 2/2019 ••• EWOD (the Estonian Writers’ Online Dictionary) is a lexicon and database compiled by literary researchers at the University of Tartu, ...
The 2018 Turku Book Fair: Notes from the organiser By Sanna Immanen ELM 1/2019 ••• In October of last year, Finland’s oldest annual book fair brought together a total of 700 performers, 500 book releases, hundreds of stand...
A Brief Guide to Toomas Nipernaadi’s Estonia By Jason Finch ELM 1/2019 ••• The object of this guide is to supply curious readers, who are possibly also travellers in the country, with some information about the lan...
Tiit AleksejevPlaces of writing By Tiit Aleksejev ELM 1/2019 ••• Places of writing can be divided into two: those where writing is possible in general, and those that have a direct connection to the subje...
Lyrikline – Listen to the poet 20 years of spoken poetry By Elle-Mari Talivee ELM 2019/1 ••• This year, the Lyrikline.org poetry portal, which was founded in Berlin in 1999, will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Running the site is t...
Literature and Diplomacy by Janika Kronberg 2/2006 ••• Diplomacy and literature, or fine arts in general, can be viewed as the opposing spheres of human activities. In everyday language, diploma...
EstLitFest:an open-air snow globe on foreign soil By Adam Cullen ELM 2/2018 ••• If ever there was a fitting location for a first-of-its-kind showcase of Estonian literature and culture in the Anglophone world, it was the...
A Perfect Day By Eva Koff ELM 2/2018 ••• "A Perfect Day" is a new ELM column, in which individuals associated with literature in Estonia share their recipes for a perfect day. The f...
The Dodo’s decision By Maarja Kangro ELM 2/2018 ••• “Everybody has won and all must have prizes.” Those are the Dodo’s words in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and both James F. E...
A small assortment of Estonian drama competition’s tastiest treats By Mihkel Seeder ELM 2/2018 ••• Estonia is a land of theater wonder, with sublime plays that are like Estonian chocolates: once you’ve opened the box, you can’t sto...
Love doesn’t exist in a vacuum By Maarja Vaino ELM 1/2018 ••• Published in 1935, I Loved a German (Ma armastasin sakslast) was the seventh novel written by the Estonian literary classic A. H. Tammsaare ...
Estonian-Russian literature: Estonian literature written in Russian By Aija Sakova ELM 1/2018 ••• In the late 1990s, Sergei Issakov (1931–2013), who was born in the border town of Narva and taught Slavic studies in Tartu his entire career...
A regular writer’s salary: Really? By Piret Põldver ELM 1/2018 ••• Estonia is a small country where people generally can’t make a living purely on art and literature: the market simply isn’t large enough. ...
Tallinn University’s new Estonian Studies master’s program By Piret Viires ELM 2/2017 ••• Interest in Estonia has been growing around the world, and rising along with it is the number of those intrigued by the Estonian language an...
Fear and loathing in little villages By Mari Klein ELM 2/2017 ••• Over the last few years, the writers Birk Rohelend and Katrin Pauts have set out to enrich the Estonian crime genre with grim, trying tales ...
Estonian Literary Awards 2016 By Piret Viires ELM 2/2017 ••• Jaan Kaplinski received a lifetime creative achievement award from the Republic of Estonia. Andrei Ivanov was likewise recognized for his cr...
Five Snow Whitesand not a single prince By Carolina Pihelgas ELM 1/2017 ••• Writing about female poets, one inevitably arrives at a disturbing thought: why are some women regarded as poets, and others as poetesses? T...
Six Estonianshort story writers through time By Mait Vaik ELM 1/2017 ••• When I was asked to write about the five Estonian short story writers I enjoy the most, I unconsciously wondered: based on what criteria? Th...
Memories and history – friends or enemies? By Peeter Helme ELM 2/2016 ••• Kai Aareleid, Holger Kaints, and Ilmar Taska deal with the 1940s in their newest novels. Discussing the relationship between memories and...
Peripheries of (be)longingin contemporary Estonian literature By Brita Melts ELM 2/2016 ••• While the topic of confession and a deluge of biographies were items of discussion in Estonian literature during the first decade ...
Some who Live the Estonian language By ELM ELM 2/2016 ••• The Estonian Literature Center has a magnificent tradition of inviting translators of Estonian literature who hail from all around the world...
Six Estonian Poets:Juhan Viidingand others since him By Jan Kaus ELM 1/2016 ••• When writer and literary critic Igor Kotjuh posted on his Facebook account the top ten events in Estonian literature in 2015, one of them wa...
The Man Who Spoke Snakish:Andrus Kivirähk in English By Peter Blackstock ELM 1/2016 ••• As an editor, you never know when you are going to find an interesting writer. Of course, manuscripts usually come from literary agents, but...
The many voicesof Estonian drama By Heidi Aadma ELM 1/2016 ••• Ten years ago was the one-hundredth anniversary of professional Estonian theatre. To celebrate the grand occasion, Pärnu’s Endla Theatre mad...
Insanity in Estonian literature By Maarja Vaino ELM 1/2016 ••• According to US literary critic Shoshana Felman, insanity is an obsession of contemporary literature: stories being told are almost exclusiv...
The irony of hope By Adam Cullen ELM 1/2016 ••• "How’s that—we do have freedom now, don’t we?" Sõrgats insisted. "Well, we do," Lumepart said, "but what am I supposed to do with that?" ...