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Purge
Sofi Oksanen
Novel, 2008. Translated from Finnish
Two women in rural Estonia carry the violence of Soviet occupation and its aftermath, from the 1940s to the early 1990s.
Books set in Estonia
Four books by writers from Estonia, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with Purge and Professor Martens' Departure.
About the literature of Estonia
Estonia's national epic, Kalevipoeg, was written by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald in the nineteenth century from folk tales about a giant hero. Estonian is a Finnic language close to Finnish, and its written literature grew alongside older oral songs called regilaul, or runic song. Decades of Soviet occupation shaped what writers could publish, and the 1940s remain a recurring subject.
Jaan Kross's Professor Martens' Departure, written in Estonian, has a scholar looking back on his life during a train journey. His Treading Air follows a boy through the interwar republic and the Soviet annexation of 1940. Sofi Oksanen's Purge places two women in rural Estonia amid Soviet occupation, from the 1940s to the early 1990s, and her When the Doves Disappeared shows Estonia under Nazi and then Soviet occupation.
By writers from Estonia
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Professor Martens' Departure
Jaan Kross
Novel, 1984. Translated from Estonian by Anselm Hollo
An Estonian scholar looks back on his life from a train journey, tracing Tartu, the Russian Empire and Estonian national awakening.
Treading Air
Jaan Kross
Novel, 1980. Translated from Estonian
Follows an Estonian boy through the interwar republic, the 1940 Soviet annexation and the shifting loyalties of Tallinn life.
When the Doves Disappeared
Sofi Oksanen
Novel, 2012. Translated from Finnish
Shows Estonia under Nazi and then Soviet occupation in the 1940s, and the compromises people made to survive.
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