Mati Unt (1944-2005)
This piece originally appeared in CONTEXT 18, shortly after Mati Unt's passing. It was written by the translator Eric Dickens, Unt's translator, who also left us in 2017. Mati Unt was born in Estonia and lived there all his life. He spent his early years in the village of Linnamäe near the university town of Tartu. His ...
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"Brecht at Night" by Mati Unt [BTBA 2010 Fiction Longlist]
Over the next two days, we’ll be highlighting a book a day from the Best Translated Book Award fiction longlist. Click here for all past write-ups. Brecht at Night by Mati Unt. Translated from the Estonian by Eric Dickens. (Estonia, Dalkey Archive) Below is a guest post from Bill Marx — the man behind ...
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New Nordic Blog and "The Normaliser"
Nordic Voices is an interesting addition to the lit blog world. Run by three British literary translators (who combined translate from Finnish, Swedish, Russian, and Estonian), the goal of the blog is to bring more attention to Nordic literature (beyond the thrillers) and related translation issues. The site is still ...
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David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist Realism
Literature written in Yiddish has been one of the unluckiest in modern history. The language was regarded for several centuries as a kind of kitchen patois, spoken by people towards the lower end of Jewish society in Eastern and Central Europe. Just as it was emerging as a serious literary language, those writing in it were ...
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Latest Review: David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist Realism
Our latest review is Eric Dickens’ examination of David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist
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Obituary: Jaan Kross
Eric Dickens—translator of Kross and his fellow countryman Mati Unt, along with many other writers—offered to write an obituary of Jaan Kross for us. As Dickens points out, this is more than just an obituary—it’s also an overview of one of Estonia’s great writers who is hardly known in the ...
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New Review Added
Our latest review is of Viivi Luik’s The Beauty of History translated from the Estonian by Hildi Hawkins. This review is written by Eric Dickens, who has done his fair share of translating from Estonian. Most recently he did Mati Unt’s Things in the Night for Dalkey Archive Press, and will be doing Unt’s ...
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