Kristiina Ehin and Kairi Look

Kairi Look (1983) performs at the HeadRead literary festival several times. Obviously, this is thanks to the writer’s versatile talent. Firstly, Look is one of the most important Estonian children’s writers of the last decade, whose work has gathered an influential number of young admirers since her adventurous book Leemuripoeg Ville teeb sääred was published in 2012. Secondly, Look has increasingly written for adults; in 2018 her short story Relaps was awarded the Looming magazine prize. This year, however, promises to be a pivotal year for Look, as her first novel Tantsi tolm põrandast has already earned a lot of praise. With its autobiographical notes, this searching, intimate, and nostalgic story about how a child becomes an adult and the self-discovery of a woman promises to elevate Look, an acclaimed children’s author, to the top tier of contemporary Estonian prose.

Kristiina Ehin (1977) is an Estonian poet, prose writer and musician, who can already be counted as one of our national treasures. Ehin began her creative journey as a poet in the 1990s, when she also belonged to the legendary literary group Erakkond. In 2006, after four collections of poetry and the Cultural Endowment Poetry Award for her fourth collection of poetry Kaitseala, Ehin published her first work of prose, a collection of stories and letters titled Pillipuhujanaine ja pommipanijanaine (2006). Since then, Ehin has gained popularity as a poet, prose writer and member of the band Naised Köögis. Her latest book is the autobiographical work Südametammide taga (2024), in which the author intertwines, which her characteristic linguistic sensitivity and rich imagery, the pressure of everyday life and the mundane with the thoughts and feelings that plague her soul and the connections that arise from them. Ehin’s work is characterised by the harmony of tragedy and comedy, the real and the unreal, all connected with a free but firm hand. This wondrous Villa Villekulla built out of words, where so many enchanted readers have lost themselves, was also nominated for the Prose Prize of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia in 2024.