Paavo Matsin ©

Paavo Matsin [Estonia]

Matsin graduated from high school in Tallinn in 1988 and then studied Estonian language and literature at the School of Educational Sciences at Tallinn University from 1988 to 1993. After graduating as an Estonian philologist, he studied semiotics and literature for a year at the Tallinn Humanitarian Institute, and from 1997 to 2003 studied theology at the Institute of Theology of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tallinn, graduating with a degree in theology.

Matsin made his debut in 2002 in an anthology from the experimental group 14NÜ and published his first book in 2011, Doktor Schwarz. Alkeemia 12 võtit (tr: Doctor Schwarz: The Twelve Keys of Alchemy). Since then, he has become known above all as an avant-gardist and someone interested in secret science. This is supported by his use of different – i.e. Russian or Latvian – variants of his name. His second novel, set mostly in Riga, has been compared to the work of Teet Kallas.

Matsin’s third, award-winning novel, Gogoli disko (tr: Gogol’s Disco), is set in Viljandi, the only Estonian city not razed to the ground after a devastating war between NATO and Russia. Estonia is once again part of the Russian Tsarist Empire, and Estonian culture has been more or less forced underground. Russian intellectuals are in charge, including the resurrected Nikolai Gogol. The book is not a depressing vision of the future, however, but has been described as a playful dystopia or allegorical grotesque.

Matsin’s themes make him a solitaire of the Estonian literary scene: alchemy, fortune-telling, mysticism, and its parody. His readings, during which he plays his own music and sometimes serves specially produced Gogol vodka, are legendary. In 2016, he received the Estonian Cultural Capital Prize and the European Union Prize for Literature for Gogol’s Disco. 

He has been a member of the Estonian Writers’ Association since 2004. His work has been translated into fifteen languages.