
Kristiina Ehin © Wolf-Dirk Skiba
Kristiina Ehin [Estonia]
Kristiina Ehin is a leading poet, short story writer and singer-songwriter from Estonia. The author of 16 books in Estonian her latest poetrybooks “Janu on kõikidel üks” (2020) and “Janu on kõikidel kaks” (2022) have both been widely popular and her latest poetic novel in Estonian “Südametammide taga” has been a bestseller since it was published in December 2024.
She received the most prestigious Estonian poetry award for her collection “Kaitseala” (Huma, 2005), which includes poems and journal entries she wrote while working as a nature reserve guard on an uninhabited island off the northern coast of Estonia.
In English translation she has published eight books of poetry, two books of surrealistic short stories, and a book of Estonian folk tales. The Drums of Silence (Oleander, 2007) was awarded the British Poetry Society Popescu Prize for European Poetry in Translation, and The Scent of Your Shadow (Arc, 2010) is a British Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation.1001 Winters (Bitter Oleander Press, 2012) was shortlisted for the Popescu Prize in 2013.
Her poetry and prose have appeared in leading English language literary magazines such as Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Wales, Cyphers, Orbis, The Stinging Fly, Crannóg, as well as the Bloodaxe anthologies Centres of Cataclysm, Hwaet! and The World Record, and the anthology Best European Fiction 2013. In addition to English, her work has also been translated into at least twenty languages and published in book form in seven languages.
She is a member of the Estonian contemporary folk group Naised Köögis, and is an acclaimed performer of her poetry, at home and abroad, having appeared at The Ledbury Poetry Festival and Poetry Parnassus, among others.
The book of her surreal and poetic shortstories “Planeta pożeraczy serc” translated by Marta Perlikiewicz was published in Poland Lublin 2023 by Warsztaty Kultury.