Maarja Kangro

Maarja Kangro (1973) is an Estonian poet, prose writer and translator. Her first book Kurat õrnal lumel was published in 2006. Her third book of poems, Heureka (2008), won the poetry prize of the Estonian Cultural Endowment. Kangro’s poetry is characterised by intertextuality; instead of playing on the emotions of the reader she appeals to their skills of associating and analysis. Two years later, Kangro won the Estonian Cultural Endowment prose prize for her collection of short stories entitled Ahvid ja solidaarsus. Kangro’s short stories are unlike anything else in contemporary Estonian literature – often autobiographical and ironic in tone, they follow the quests and relationships of a self-assured woman at the border between youth and middle age. Kangro’s gaze is decidedly sober and free of illusions, coming from a rational sensibility (which, of course, does not mean that her characters cannot be irrational). In her documentary novel Klaaslaps, published last year, Kangro candidly describes her failed attempts at having a child, not sparing herself or anyone else around her. Kangro is also a remarkable translator and mostly translates from Italian and German, including authors like Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Giacomo Leopardi and Bertolt Brecht.