ROSIE-ON-THE-ROAD by Rosie Goldsmith: What’s Happening in Estonian Literature? A Tale of Two Cities – And Their Writers, 28 May – 2 June 2025
On-the-Road again to Estonia, my first visit since I was here reporting for the BBC in the post-Independence 1990s. This time it’s for the capital Tallinn’s literary festival HeadRead, followed by a visit to Tartu, Estonia’s second city and a UNESCO City of Literature. My companion is #TheBalticsRiveter which we at the European Literature Network published in 2018 to celebrate The Baltics – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – as Guests of Honour at London Book Fair 2018. #TheBalticsRiveter is still a great read and still available for free here on our website.
Over the next five days I’m looking forward to meeting some ‘old’ Estonian writer friends from those days and making some ‘new’ ones, scouting for new talent for events, festivals, translation and publishing in the UK.
I hope these blogs are useful, entertaining and interesting. For me these trips and in-person meetings are essential, to visit the places writers are inspired by, to gauge their linguistic, cultural and political influences and to get a feel for their motivation, their personal and professional way of being. I receive no fee for this work, which leaves me free to write honestly about what I experience, but I am very grateful to Ilvi Liive, director of the Estonian Literature Centre in Tallinn (ELIC), and to Marika Goldman, cultural attaché at the Estonian Embassy in London for recognising the importance of my work and covering my travel costs.
Tallinn (photos by Rosie Goldsmith)
Before I scout out writers, my favourite task whenever I travel is to explore my location on foot. So, before I introduce you to the HeadRead literature festival let me introduce you to a few of Tallinn’s sights. This beautiful city on the Baltic coast has a population of 440,000, some glorious and immensely photogenic medieval buildings, narrow cobbled streets, turrets and rooftops, Hanseatic Gothic, a pink parliament – and (understandably) lots of tourists. You can always spot the Baltic Sea out yonder, churches of every denomination (including the grand Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral) and, downtown, the barricaded Russian Embassy. Estonia borders Russia, Finland and Latvia, has a population of 1.3 million, is the smallest of the Baltic States, but its Finno-Ugric language is completely different from the languages of Latvia and Lithuania. Russian is spoken by a third of Estonia’s population, a consequence of the Soviet occupation but also of its proximity to Russia. When I first visited Tallinn for the BBC it was indeed to explore this Russian-Estonian integration. Today it’s tricky (to say the least) as Estonia wholeheartedly supports Ukraine, and as NATO is visibly active in the Baltics, but many Russians who’ve been here decades are integrated and do see themselves as Estonian. There’s a popular Estonian-Russian author in Tallinn called Andrei Ivanov, who writes about this, and I’d highly recommend his work.
Krista Kaer, Sofi Oksanen, Lilli Luuk, Kai Aareleid, Kristiina Ehin and Carolina Pihelgas (photos by Rosie Goldsmith)
Let me say first and foremost that there is NOTHING to beat meeting writers on their home turf, especially when they are appearing at Tallinn’s annual literary festival Headread, running since 2009, which I have longed to visit. My first photo is of festival director, the publisher and translator, the literary QUEEN of Tallinn, Krista Kaer, followed by Finnish-Estonian phenomenon Sofi Oksanen (yes, she has multicoloured hair). Sofi is a major novelist in these parts and public intellectual, writing about women’s rights, Russian aggression and lots more. I have never understood why she is not better known in the UK. Read her latest essay, Same River Twice – Putin’s War on Women. Review HERE.
And now pave the way for Lilli Luuk! UK publishers: grab her FAST! Lilli was an art historian and academic and published her first book of short stories in 2018; since then she has won most major Estonian prizes for her stories and two novels, the latest novel Night Mother presented at HeadRead. Not only do readers love her writing but fellow writers do too: like many Estonian writers currently – especially women – she is lifting the lid on the traumas of Estonia’s period of occupation.
Captivating writing by women was definitely a festival trend, and I was delighted to see the novelist Kai Aareleid again, also a favourite 2018 Riveter, and Estonia’s representative at our first European Writers’ Festival in London in 2023. I reunited with the mesmerizing Kristiina Ehin too, also of the class of 2018 and of 2024 European Writers Festival fame. Kristiina is a poet and performer of exceptional power, and has just published her first novel in Estonian, literally translated as Behind the Dams of the Heart. Her poetry is widely translated into English, I’ve read a draft of her first novel in English and, honestly, it’s special. My next effusive recommendation is of Carolina Pihelgas, another of Estonia’s very best poets and novelists. This year she was the first ever winner of Estonia’s new Women’s Prize for Fiction with her novel The Cut Line. Thankfully this one has been snapped up: it will be published in English translation by Darcy Hurford this autumn by World Editions.
Indrek Koff ands Rein Raud (photos by Rosie Goldsmith)
Some wonderful male writers too, ofcourse: I loved meeting remarkable all-rounder, children’s-book-author-and-translation-supremo Indrek Koff, and the academic-novelist-poet-philosopher-translator (and 2018 Riveter) Rein Raud, he of the Perfect Sentence. Rein is brilliant and prolific, with 11 novels to his name. There’s an English sample of his novel Plague Train here, if you fancy publishing it?
Rein Raud has also been working with translator Chris Moseley on the English translation of his 2021 novel The Sun Script, to be published by Norvik Press in late 2025.
The translation grants provided by the Estonian Literature Centre are generous, and Ilvi, Kerti and the team are wonderful to work with.
Krista Kaer and Ilve Liive (photos by Rosie Goldsmith)
Estonian literature seems to be thriving. Krista Kaer reckons there are 100 publishers in Estonia, about 20 are big ones, most of them based in Tallinn, but some in Tartu too. Independents are strong, booksellers are innovative and there is the worldwide trend here too of bookshops-as-cafes-gift-shops-and-networking-hubs. Estonian books are mostly published in hardback but there is a pioneering paperback series too that’s just launched. Book groups are popular, and festivals are boasting record attendance figures. Estonian independence is based proudly on the durability of its language and literature: as it is so established historically, so different from Indo-European languages and from Russian, it was easier to retain Estonian under occupation. But there are modern-day threats: first, the substantial number of people, especially younger readers, reading in English. Just imagine what that means for translation and publishing! As a small country thriving for centuries on translation to provide its window-on-the-world, the fact that people are bypassing translations and reading directly in English is worrying. Also, and this too is significant for the whole Estonian book trade, growing numbers of writers are self-publishing. These are not just emerging writers but established writers, like Kristiina Ehin, Indrek Koff and others I met. There is little stigma attached to self-publishing here, although the trend is being monitored closely by anxious mainstream publishers.
Kristjan Haljak, Editor-in-Chief of Estlit (photos by Rosie Goldsmith)
On the very positive side, I learned about Estonia’s truly remarkable Cultural Endowment Fund. Financial support of culture in Estonia is secured, protected and ring-fenced by this Fund. Every single writer I met has benefitted from it, including a variety of organisations, such as the Estonian Literature Centre (ELIC). This week, under ELIC’s umbrella, a new literary magazine was launched called ESTLIT. It’s in English, it’s online and will be in print every quarter. Most importantly it showcases Estonian contemporary literature to the outside world. Kristjan Haljak is Editor-in-Chief, himself a poet, academic, translator and someone with all 10 fingers on Estonia’s literary pulse. You can follow ESTLIT on Facebook, Instagram and here online.
Tartu and Marja Unt (photos by Rosie Goldsmith)
After three days in sunny Tallinn, a 10 euro (!) luxury coach took me the 2 ½ hours from the Baltic north down through Estonia’s middle earth to Tartu in the south. Seeing Estonia’s abundant forests and lakes, and knowing how its writers revere its nature and folk stories, was enlightening. After the flat, tree-lined drive, brightened only by the odd lake and fields of rapeseed, suddenly there are the crowds, parks, architecture and mighty river of Tartu, the Emajõgi. Tartu is Estonia’s second city, population 98,000. Tartu’s intellectual life is focused on its famous 19th century university (cf. the classical columns of the facade), the cobbled old town, originally medieval, fanning out from the pink rococo-baroque town hall. Tartu shows its history, its traumas and triumphs, clearly in its architecture – German, Hanseatic, Scandinavian, Soviet, pre-war wooden houses and some wonderful old fortifications. The restored red-brick St John’s Church, originally 14th century, destroyed in WW2, is magnificent – even in the pouring rain. Sadly rain stopped me seeing more of the city BUT I did meet several Tartu writers and the remarkable Marja Unt (of the fiery red hair) whose many jobs include running the Estonian Literary Society and this year’s celebration of 500 Years of the Estonian Book (look it up – very interesting!). Marja is also director of Prima Vista, Estonia’s longest-running literary festival (taking place early May), and co-ordinator of Tartu’s City of Literature programme (the global UNESCO network of literary cities – there are now over 50 cities). She’s incredibly busy and Tartu’s literary life is incredibly rich. They’ve made a feature out of literary walks – such a great idea – and have a fabulous Literary Map of Tartu as well as beautiful statues and plaques dedicated to the city’s writers.
Tartu has a very different feel from Tallinn. If you think of its geographical location – 2 ½ hours from modern-medieval bustling touristy Tallinn, 3 hours from Latvia’s capital Riga and less than an hour from Russia to its east – you can better understand Tartu. Life may be more relaxed but there’s an urgency too, as they’ve been buffeted, bombed and challenged by so many waves of visitors and invaders. Tartu feels less polished and preened than Tallinn. Its writers are steeped in southern Estonia’s history, geography, culture – and problems. Carolina Pihelgas, Kristiina Ehin, Lilli Luuk and Kai Aareleid all come from Tartu, as does the revered grand dame of poetry Doris Kareva (who I met again on this trip – she was also a 2018 Riveter!), as well as Mikhel Mutt, the great satirist, and the science fiction writer Meelis Friedenthal.
But I’ll stop here. I have barely touched on Estonia’s poetry scene, but I assure you it’s buoyant (check out Steven Fowler’s European Poetry Festival in the UK for proof; Mathura is one name to watch). So, I’m leaving Estonia with a long list of writers I wish I had had time to drink coffee with – Maarja Kangro, Tõnu Õnnepalu, Ilmar Taska, Kätlin Kaldmaa, Paavo Matsin and more – but very grateful to those who did take time to tell me their tales from their two cities, from Tallinn to Tartu.
Rosie Goldsmith
Rosie Goldsmith is Director and Founder of the European Literature Network and Editor-in-Chief of The Riveter. She was a BBC broadcaster for twenty years and is today an arts journalist and presenter. She was chair of the judges for the EBRD Literature Prize 2018–2020.
Read previous posts in Rosie-on-the-Road series:
abdessamed gtumsila
Thank you for the lovely tour, Rosie! It’s great to see such vibrant energy in Estonian literature.