Biography

Nikolai Baturin (August 5, 1936 – May 16, 2019) was an Estonian award-winning novelist and playwright. Baturin was born in the village of Arumetsa in Suislepa Parish (now the village of Maltsa, Viljandi Parish), Viljandi County. His father was a fisherman. After attending high school, military service took him for five years to the Caspian oil-fields and the Atlantic Ocean; for fifteen years he was a hunter in the Siberian taiga. For six years he participated in various geological expeditions. Baturin debuted with a collection of poetry, Maa-alused järved (Underground Lakes, 1968), in the last wave of the "cassette" generation in the 1960s. In addition to fiction, he has written plays, poetry, screenplays, and essays. He has illustrated his own books and produced his own plays. His works have been translated into Russian, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian. He became a member of the Estonian Writers' Union in 1973.

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