The man who spoke in snake tongue

In his novel The Man Who Spoke Snakish, Kivirähk introduces the reader to 13th-century Estonia during its Christianisation. He describes a community of forest people that is gradually falling apart as its members leave for the village to be baptised and live as Christians. In the end, only one man remains who can speak the language of snakes and communicate with animals.
The author draws heavily on Estonian mythology, which shapes the harsh but free life of the forest people. The plot of the novel is fast-paced, and some scenes are cruel, even horrific, such as the fanaticism of the pagan priest Ülgas. Kivirähk has described his novel as the story of an expiring nation and language, expressing a fear that in a hundred years or so, the last man might be one who understood Estonian.

Andrus Kivirähk (1970)

An Estonian prose writer, playwright and columnist. He began publishing at the age of fourteen, writing humorous stories, parodies, columns and short stories for various magazines. He published his first book at twenty-five and received the Cultural Endowment of Estonia award for it. This was The Memoirs of Ivan Orav, or The Past as Blue-Grey Hills (Ivan Orava mälestused ehk Minevik kui helesinised mäed, 1995). In it, he humorously depicts the history of the Republic of Estonia and the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. Two years later, another prose work followed, The Artist Jakub (Kunstnik Jaagup), for which he received the Tuglas award for the best short story of the year.
His novel The Butterfly (Liblikas, 1999) deals with the history of the Estonia Theatre and the fate of one of its actresses and dancers, E. Tetzky. He achieved his greatest popularity with his novel Old Barny (Rehepapp, 2000). Its plot takes place in the distant past in an Estonian village steeped in a belief in supernatural beings. It is not without the author's distinctive humour, typical of his works.