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The reception of Emil Tode’s Border State (1993) was shaped by multiple elements that were novel to Estonian literature of the time, i...
Reflections
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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...
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Writer Indrek Koff takes a look at literature’s borderlands and asks what peculiarities might arise there.
For some reason, I’ve always ...
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Katja Novak’s overview of the 2022 Translators’ Seminar organized by the Estonian Literature Center in Käsmu, Estonia from June 10th to 15t...
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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...
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Ecological thinking lies at the core of Jaan Kaplinski’s (1941–2021) diverse catalogue. His poetry, prose, essays, and general outlook on l...
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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...
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In Estonia, an interesting cultural discussion is underway, prompted by a call to celebrate Estonian Literature Day. The proposed date is J...
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It isn’t a stretch to assert that literature is an art of solitude. This especially true in comparison with other creative practices: many ...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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EWOD (the Estonian Writers’ Online Dictionary) is a lexicon and database compiled by literary researchers at the University of Tartu, ...
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In October of last year, Finland’s oldest annual book fair brought together a total of 700 performers, 500 book releases, hundreds of stand...
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The object of this guide is to supply curious readers, who are possibly also travellers in the country, with some information about the lan...
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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...
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This year, the Lyrikline.org poetry portal, which was founded in Berlin in 1999, will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Running the site is t...
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Diplomacy and literature, or fine arts in general, can be viewed as the opposing spheres of human activities. In everyday language, diploma...
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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...
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"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...
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“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...
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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...
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Published in 1935, I Loved a German (Ma armastasin sakslast) was the seventh novel written by the Estonian literary classic A. H. Tammsaare ...
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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...
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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. ...
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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...
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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 ...
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Jaan Kaplinski received a lifetime creative achievement award from the Republic of Estonia. Andrei Ivanov was likewise recognized for his cr...
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Writing about female poets, one inevitably arrives at a disturbing thought: why are some women regarded as poets, and others as poetesses? T...
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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...
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Kai Aareleid, Holger Kaints, and Ilmar Taska deal with the 1940s in their newest novels.
Discussing the relationship between memories and...
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While the topic of confession and a deluge of biographies were items of discussion in Estonian literature during the first decade ...
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The Estonian Literature Center has a magnificent tradition of inviting translators of Estonian literature who hail from all around the world...
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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...
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As an editor, you never know when you are going to find an interesting writer. Of course, manuscripts usually come from literary agents, but...
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Ten years ago was the one-hundredth anniversary of professional Estonian theatre. To celebrate the grand occasion, Pärnu’s Endla Theatre mad...
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"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?"
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