Kristiina Ehin © Wolf-Dirk Skiba

Kristiina Ehin [Estonia]

Kristiina Ehin (born 18 July 1977) is an Estonian poet, translator, singer, and songwriter.

Ehin began publishing her poems while a student at Tartu University, where she was a member of the literary group Erakkond (Group of Hermits). She has an M.A. in Comparative and Estonian Folklore from the University of Tartu for her research on archaic Estonian folk songs. She has sung in a folk music group and has worked as a translator, dance teacher, and journalist, as well as a storyteller at a school for children with special needs. Her poetic prose first appeared in book form in a volume of short stories entitled Pillipuhujanaine ja pommipanijanaine (2006; tr: Pipe-Playing-Woman and Bomb-Laying-Woman). She has also written a book of fairy tales and a play.

She is frequently invited to participate in international literary festivals. In 2008, with the help of her parents, Ly Seppel and Andres Ehin, she organized the 1st International Full Moon Poetry Festival, which had been a dream of hers for a long time. The festival brought together twenty-four poets, singers, and songwriters from Estonia and abroad, from as far away as the Shetland Islands to the west and Japan to the east.

Ehin’s poems have been translated into several languages: for example English, Russian, Swedish, Slovenian, Icelandic, Finnish, Slovak, Udmurt, Komi, German, Irish, and Welsh. A volume of her selected poems, The Drums of Silence (2007), translated into English by Ilmar Lehtpere, won the Poetry Society Popescu Prize for European Poetry in Translation. The English collection The Scent of Your Shadow, a selection of poems from Ehin’s book Emapuhkus (2009; tr: Maternity Leave), again in Ilmar Lehtpere’s translation, was published in April 2010 by Arc Publications and received the Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation award.

Her poems and prose are clearly written from a woman’s point of view. The deep spiritual feeling in her sensitive and airy poetry is very earthy and strong, with roots in Finno-Ugric culture. Ehin’s work is strikingly modern and contemporary, yet at the same time full of age-old wisdom. She often turns to folklore and tradition and regards herself as heir to the ancient Estonian tradition of female singer-poets. Her poetry and prose reflect a strong sense of continuity, a holistic view of the world that treasures Estonia’s ancient poetic and musical heritage and incorporates them into the world we live in today. Ehin has great reverence for nature and celebrates her womanhood in her work. The love between man and woman, Fire and Water is also a recurring theme, which she writes about with characteristic honesty. Her latest poetry also has another focus, the deep feeling of a mother’s love towards her child.

Her latest poetry collection, Janu on kõikidel üks (tr: Janu Has One for All) was published in 2020.