LITERARY FESTIVAL HEADREAD
Press release
31.05.2017
The HeadRead literary festival that wrapped up on Sunday featured more than 30 international guests and twice as many Estonian performers. In total, 75 literary events with more than 110 performers were held over five days.
All events found their audience and we are happy that the performances of new work by Estonian authors and conversations with Estonian writers proved very popular.
This year, many international publishers and heads of festivals also visited HeadRead, including Philip Teir, the head of the Helsinki Lit festival, and Nick Barley, head of the Edinburgh literary festival, who welcomed the cosy atmosphere and organisation of HeadRead. The Edinburgh literary festival was founded 33 years ago, it is held over 17 days in August with more than 800 writers attending, and last year, the festival had around 230 000 visitors.
The Estonian Public Broadcaster (ERR) recorded conversations with Louise O’Neill, Jonas Khemiri and Tan Twan Eng which will be broadcast on Estonian television. Additionally, the cultural portal of the ERR made a live stream of the panel discussion on Mati Unt which is available for watching online, and events of the festival were also recorded by Tallinn Television. Photos of the festival by Dmitri Kotjuh can be accessed through the festival website or on the festival’s Flickr site.
The HeadRead literary festival would like to thank our partners, our sponsors – the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Ministry of Culture, the British Council, the Tallinn Cultural Department and Elisa Raamat – and of course, all our performers and visitors.
The next HeadRead will be held from 23 to 27 May 2018, when the festival will celebrate its 10th year.
