Estonia

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FICTION
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Ilmar Taska grew up in Estonia and then studied at the Moscow Film Institute. He has worked as a film producer, director and screenwriter internationally. In 1993 he established his own television company which was the first private national network in Estonia. In 2011, Ilmar made his debut into the literary world with an autobiographical novella called Better than Life (Parem kui elu). In 2014 he won the annual literature prize in Estonia for his short story Pobeda and his short story collection More Beautiful than Life (Skonare an livet) was published in Sweden. His short story, Apartment for Rent, was included in Best European Fiction 2016, published by Dalkey Archive Press. Ilmar works as a consultant for House of Film and divides his time between Tallinn and Los Angeles. For more information about Ilmar please see this profile on the Estonian Literature Centre webpage.

Ilmar Taska - Pobeda 1946Pobeda 1946, A Car Called Victory
In Tallinn in 1946 a young boy is transfixed by the beauty of a luxurious cream-coloured car gliding down the street. It is a Russian Pobeda, a car called Victory. The sympathetic driver invites the boy for a ride and enquires about his family. Soon the boy’s father disappears. Ilmar Taska’s debut novel captures the distrust and fear among Estonians living under Soviet occupation after World War II. The reader is transported to a world seen through the eyes of a young boy, where it is difficult to know who is right and who is wrong, be they occupiers or occupied. Resistance fighters, exiles, informants and torturers all find themselves living in Stalin’s long shadow.

Ilmar Taska is best known in his native Estonia as a film director and producer.
Pobeda 1946: A Car Called Victory is his first full novel, and is based on a prize-winning short story from 2014 from which two short films have already been adapted. A huge success in his home country, it has already been translated in nine languges.

FULL ENGLISH and GERMAN LANGUAGE MANUSCRIPTS AVAILABLE

246 pages – Original language: Estonian (Varrak, 2016). Translations: Finnish (Bonnier Books/WSOY, 2018), German (Kommode Verlag, 2019), Danish (Jensen 0g Dalgaard, 2019), English (Norvik Press, 2018), Swedish (Historiska Media, 2020) Lithuanian (Homo Liber, 2017), Latvian (Jumava, 2017), Hungarian (Magyar Naplo, 2019), Bulgarian (Avant Gard, 2020), Dutch (Nobelman, 2021)

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