Piret Raud and Eva Koff

Thursday 28 May
17:00
Estonian Writers' Union
Event language:
Estonian
Event translation:
English
Entry:
Free
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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.


Piret Raud (b. 1971) is an Estonian writer and artist. Having begun her career in the 1990s as a children’s author and illustrator, Raud has since become one of Estonia’s most highly regarded and award-winning writers, whose work has reached far beyond the country’s borders. She has published several dozen children’s books, the most recent of which, An Important Figure (Tähtis kuju), appeared last year. The book offers a witty response to a serious subject – the increasingly pervasive totalitarian mindset in the world. To date, Raud has also published six prose works for adults, including two short story collections and four novels. Her latest, the novel The Time of Boiled Deer (Keedetud hirvede aeg, Tänapäev, 2024), is a magical-realist artist’s novel set in the years of Soviet stagnation, with autobiographical undertones. It tells the story of two women – mother Anna and daughter Lill – and the artist-filled house in which they live. In doing so, it juxtaposes an oppressive social reality with the inner sensitivity and aesthetic awareness of those living within it.

© Kris Moor
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