Juhani Püttsepp

Juhani Püttsepp (1964) is a biologist, nature writer and children’s author. He has published more than thirty books and his contribution to children’s literature has been particularly acclaimed in recent years. For example, the narrative On kuu kui kuldne laev (2020) was won the annual award of the Estonian Children’s Literature Centre and it also won the Virumaa Literature Prize. The book deals with a rare topic in our children’s literature: one of the most difficult times in Estonia’s recent history, namely the Great Flight of 1944. Keete, the protagonist of the book, looks back at her youth when she and her parents made a boat trip across the stormy sea to Sweden, which gives an opportunity to consider the causes and consequences of such a decision. Püttsepp’s latest children’s book is Leierkastilugu (2024), a novel of rich language about a barrel organ living in an idyllic seaside town that loses its master, the barrel organ player Fridtjof. The work was nominated for the Children’s Literature Award of the Cultural Endowment.