New Estonian Short Stories

Without a doubt, the year 2014 can be considered the year of the short story in Estonian literature. A total of five out of six prose works nominated for the Estonian Cultural Endowment Awards are essentially collections of short stories, even though several highlighted works include texts that cannot be linked to the short story genre unequivocally. Although the art of the short story remains important in Estonian literature – the Friedebert Tuglas short story award, founded in 1971, is one of the most important literary awards in Estonia – short stories tend to be eclipsed by novels on the book market. However, since the genre fared better last year than the local novel, festival HeadRead would like to celebrate the healthy state of this art form. Therefore, we asked some of the most remarkable authors of this demanding genre: Kätlin Kaldmaa, whose collection Terav nagu nuga combines both worldliness and feminine social nerve; Maarja Kangro, whose Hüppa tulle continues to demonstrate her skills at ironically and dynamically describing human relationships; Urmas Vadi, who, with his characteristic joy, mixes fear of death and will to live in his latest collection of stories; and finally Ilmar Taska, so far known as a filmmaker, whose short story Pobeda won the prize of the literary magazine Looming in 2013 and whose works have met international success. The short story writers will exchange thoughts on Friday, 29 May at 7 pm in Kloostri Ait.