Eva Koff

Eva Koff (b. 1973) is an Estonian prose writer, translator and playwright. Her plays brought her considerable acclaim in the 2000s at competitions organised by the Estonian Theatre Agency, but in the following decade she turned increasingly towards longer prose. Her debut novel Blue Mountain (Sinine mägi), published in 2017, won second prize in the Estonian Writers’ Union novel competition. Last year saw the publication of her third novel, The Tightrope Walker (Õhuskõndija), which was nominated for the Estonian Cultural Endowment’s prose award. Like Blue Mountain, it is both historical and dreamlike in texture, rich in symbolism, and takes the reader to a suburb of Tartu more than a century ago. At its centre are two young women – Magdalena, a seamstress and nurse, and Nora, a young mother raising a child with special needs – whose dreams are soaring while reality remains inescapable. Against a patriarchal world, Koff sets feminine courage and imagination. It is also worth noting that Eva Koff is the first writer to have been named Writer of the Year twice at the Estonian Writers’ Festival held at the Liiv Museum in Alatskivi.