Estonia

The Man Who Spoke Snakish

Winner of the Eduard Vilde Literary Award.

“The Man Who Spoke Snakish is one of those important books that speaks to your soul in its own language and which marks a milestone in your personal reading history.” - des Bouquins

“A bestseller in the author’s native country of Estonia, where the book is so well known that a popular board game has been created based on it, The Man Who Spoke Snakish is the imaginative and moving story of a boy who is tasked with preserving ancient traditions in the face of modernity.

Set in a fantastical version of medieval Estonia, The Man Who Spoke Snakish follows a young boy, Leemet, who lives with his hunter-gatherer family in the forest and is the last speaker of the ancient tongue of snakish, a language that allows its speakers to command all animals. But the forest is gradually emptying as more and more people leave to settle in villages, where they break their backs tilling the land to grow wheat for their ‘bread’ (which Leemet has been told tastes horrible) and where they pray to a god very different from the spirits worshipped in the forest’s sacred grove. With lothario bears who wordlessly seduce women, a giant louse with a penchant for swimming, a legendary flying frog, and a young charismatic viper named Ints, The Man Who Spoke Snakish is a totally inventive novel for readers of David Mitchell, Sjón, and Terry Pratchett.”

(A special thank you to book club member, Linda Varick-Cooper for the suggestion.)

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The Brother (aka Country)

The Brother (or Country as it's sometimes known) is the winner of the Eduard Vilde Literary Award.

“The Brother opens with a mysterious stranger arriving in a small town controlled by a group of men—men who recently cheated the stranger's supposed sister out of her inheritance and mother's estate. Resigned to giving up on her dreams and ambitions, Laila took this swindling in stride, something that Brother won't stand for. Soon after his arrival, fortunes change dramatically, enraging this group of powerful men, motivating them to get their revenge on Brother. Meanwhile, a rat-faced paralegal makes it his mission to discover Brother's true identity . . .

The Brother is, in Raud's own words, a spaghetti western told in poetic prose, simultaneously paying tribute to both Clint Eastwood and Alessandro Baricco. With its well-drawn characters and quick moving plot, it takes on more mythic aspects, lightly touching on philosophical ideas of identity and the ruthless way the world is divided into winners and losers.”

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The Inner Immigrant

“These essayistic short stories, penned over a thirty-year period, follow Fabian, Mihkel Mutt’s strange and self-indulgent alter ego, and his adventures in newly independent Estonia. The inner monologues of the chronically indecisive, worrying, apathetic, self-conscious and skeptical Fabian long serve as the author’s voice for delivering ironic observations of the world. These stories highlight the lingering absurdities of the previous Soviet regime, at the same time taking ironic aim at the triumphs and defeats, the virtues and vices of the Estonian intelligentsia.”

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The Petty God

“Events unfold, as in a detective story, or as voices in a fugue. No, I won’t deprive you from the pleasure of unfolding yourselves in hot pursuit of these events and then becoming whole again (as voices become whole in an exhilarating counterpoint). - The Estonian Daily

Set in an Estonian advertising agency after the end of communism, Petty God is a modern retelling of the biblical creation story. Consisting of monologues from four characters, this abstract work showcases the absurdities of modern urban life through the use of extended metaphors derived from the Bible.

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The Ropewalker

Jaan Kross “deserved a Nobel prize and would probably have got it had he written in any other language but Estonian.” - The Guardian

This epic historical trilogy is the engaging winner of Estonia’s translation award. Written by the nation's greatest modern writer, an international multi-award winner, & one of the best-known & most widely translated authors, this novel is the Estonian answer to Wolf Hall.

“Jaan Kross's trilogy dramatises the life of the renowned chronicler Balthasar Russow, whose greatest work described the effects of the Livonian War on the peasantry of what is now Estonia. Like Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell, Russow is a diamond in the rough, a thoroughly modern man in an Early Modern world, rising from humble origins to greatness through wit and learning alone.

As Livonia is used as a political football by the warring powers of Russia, Sweden, Poland, and Lithuania, he continues to climb the greasy pole of power and influence. Even as a boy, Russow has the happy knack of being in the right place and saying the right thing at the right time.

He is equally at home acting as friend and confidante to his ambitious patron and as champion for his humble rural relatives. Can anything halt his vertiginous rise? Like most young men he is prey to temptations of the flesh . . .”

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The Same River

“The first English translation of a major European literary figure and Nobel Prize nominee's most significant work of prose to date, this tense, cerebral, fascinating novel is the perfect introduction to Kaplinski.

A semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman, set in the early 1960s, this novel narrates the efforts of Kaplinski's youthful alter ego to lose his innocence and attain sexual and mystical knowledge. The 20-year-old protagonist finds an unofficial teacher in a retired theologian and poet, who is out of favor with the communist authorities. After a summer spent in intellectual and erotic soul-searching, the sexual and political intrigues finally overlap, leading to a quasi-solution. As KGB and university apparatchiks take a close interest in the relation of the two poets, the student outgrows his mentor, who despite accusing the human race of puerility, turns out to be a big and jealous child himself.

This novel is seen by many as one of the crowning achievements of a long (and still-flourishing) career in Estonia, but this is the first time this unique work is widely available in English."

(A special thank you to book club member, Judy Tanguay for the suggestion.)

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