INDREK KOFF Comments

Indrek Koff è nato a Pärnu, Estonia, nel 1975. Si è laureato in lingua e letteratura francese all'Università di Tartu e ha studiato all'Ecole Superieure d'interpretes et de traducteurs (ESIT) , a Parigi. Ha insegnato in diverse università estoni e ha lavorato come traduttore freelance dal 1998.

Indrek Koff (1975) is one of the most fascinating Estonian authors of the last decade. His writing stands out for its experimentation, the author’s talent for finding intriguing genre opportunities, and his methodical accomplishment of them. Koff can certainly be regarded as a poet, a children’s author, and a translator, but a noteworthy part of his writing shifts between different genres.

Indrek Koff was born in Estonia, Pärnu, in 1975. He graduated from the University of Tartu in French language and literature, and has studied in the College of Translators and Interpreters in Paris (L’Ecole Superieure d’interpretes et de traducteurs, ESIT, France) . He has taught at several Estonian universities and worked as a freelance translator since 1998.

Koff has translated from the French and Portuguese into Estonian works by authors including Foucault, Maeterlinck, Houellebecq, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, and others. He also collaborated on compiling a large French-Estonian-French dictionary.

Koff primarily enjoys writing for children but his “hysterical treatise” Eestluse elujõust (On the Energy of Estonian Essence) , which teeters between poetry and prose, received Estonia’s most prestigious award for poetry in 2010. Koff has continued his search for intriguing literary opportunities since then, publishing a number of unusual genre-shifting works such as Saja rahva lood (Stories of a Hundred Nations) and Poeem (A Long Poem) .