Author Category: Foreign authors

Alhierd Bacharevič (b. 1975) is a Belarusian writer and translator, and one of the leading novelists in Belarus. Shortly after the outbreak of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Bacharevič wrote an open letter in support of Ukraine, after which the Belarusian regime launched a campaign against him: he was labelled an “extremist writer”, and…

Ruth Kvarnström-Jones (b. 1962) is a writer born in England who has lived in Sweden for forty years and has become one of the country’s most popular historical novelists. This is largely due to her deep affection for her home city of Stockholm, which she has expressed in a witty and focused way by telling…

Maija Kajanto (b. 1978) is a Finnish writer. Her debut novel, Mittoja ja tilaustöita (Measurements and Commissions), a sharp-eyed portrayal of modern-day busyness, was published in 2019. Since then, Kajanto has produced works in what seems like an unending stream, with ten titles across three series to date. This creative abundance has also made its…

Timo Parvela (b. 1964) is a Finnish writer and one of Finland’s most prolific and widely read authors. He has published what amounts to a small library of works for children, young people and adults alike. As is often the case today, Parvela is particularly fond of writing series, among which Ella and Friends stands…

Simon Mason (b. 1962) is an English novelist who writes for children, young people and adults. Two instalments of his extensive and versatile body of work – from the Wilkins Detective Series – have been translated into Estonian. The series centres on an unusual detective duo: both men share the surname Wilkins, but one, Ryan,…

Ali Standish is an American writer of young adult fiction. She began her award-winning career in 2017 with her debut novel The Ethan I Was Before. The book follows a boy named Ethan, who moves from Boston to the countryside to live with his grandfather after losing his best friend. There he befriends a charismatic…

Bobbie Peers (b. 1974) is a Norwegian writer and film director. HeadRead has not previously hosted a Cannes Palme d’Or winner – Peers earned that distinction with his 2006 surrealist short film Sniffer. He made his literary debut in 2015 with the imaginative young adult novel Lyridiumstyven (The Lydium Thief, Estonian translation Helios, 2018, trans.…

While one should always treat sweeping national generalisations and stereotypes with caution, they can occasionally be revealing. It is worth remembering that we Estonians tend to think of ourselves and our society as a collection of problems. Not that problems do not exist, but we often prefer to dwell on them rather than solve them,…

Thomas Piketty (b. 1971) is a French economist whose central area of study is public economics and related issues. His best-known work is Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Le Capital au XXIe siècle, 2013), which offered a view of the history of wealth and inequality that has attracted both considerable praise and criticism. Piketty argues…