Heino Puhvel

Heino Puhvel (26 September 1926 – 29 August 2001) was a literary scholar, critic and prose writer. An important part of his activity was the research of A. H. Tammsaare’s work.

Puhvel was born as the son of a farmer in Patküla parish in Valga County. He attended primary schools at Patküla and Aegviidu, and progymnasium and secondary school in Valga. From 1945–1950, he studied at Tartu State University, graduating from the Faculty of History and Philology as an Estonian philologist. After graduating from the university, Puhvel worked as a teacher at Elva Secondary School. He was a graduate student at the Institute of Language and Literature in 1958–1960 and defended his Candidate’s degree in philology in 1963. Heino Puhvel worked at the Institute of Language and Literature for more than 30 years, first as a junior researcher, then as a senior researcher, and, in 1973–1989, as head of the literary theory department. From 1989–1992, he worked as a researcher. In 1993–1996, Puhvel was chairman of the Tartu department of the Estonian Writers’ Union. In 1997–1999, he worked as an editor in the publishing house Eesti Raamat. Heino Puhvel was a member of the Estonian Writers’ Union from 1965.

Puhvel published his first articles of literary criticism and research in the 1950s. He debuted as a short story writer in 1965 under the pseudonym of Mart Kalda. In 1997, he published a collection of short stories Detsembrikuu valgus (‘December Light’) under the name of Heino Puhvel. Puhvel repeatedly won prizes in the short story competitions of the journal Looming and the newspaper Edasi. Heino Puhvel’s short stories follow the classical form. In 1962, Leida Laius made the feature film Õhtust hommikuni (‘From Evening to Morning’) in the Tallinnfilm studio. It was based on Puhvel’s short story with the same title, which had been published in the July issue of the journal Looming in 1960.

Heino Puhvel participated in the publication of A. H. Tammsaare’s collected works (18 volumes, 1978–1993) as the compiler and author of afterwords.

Puhvel’s last major work was the compilation and editing of Eesti kirjanike leksikon (‘Lexicon of Estonian Writers’, Eesti Raamat, 2000, 693 pages). Using Eesti kirjarahva leksikon (‘Lexicon of the Literary People of Estonia’, compiled by Oskar Kruus, 1995) as a foundation, he added 200 keywords and wrote many new entries for it.

L. P. (Translated by I. A.)

Books in Estonian

Short prose
Mart Kalda, Mõnikord lauldakse sadamas. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1965. 292 lk.
Detsembrikuu valgus. Tartu: Ilmamaa, 1997. 230 lk.

Literary research
A. H. Tammsaare elu ja looming aastail 1878–1922. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1966. 408 lk.
Sõnad sõelaga sülessa. Artikleid, lühiuurimusi, marginaale. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1971. 296 lk.
Kirjandus muutuvas maailmas. Lühiuurimusi, sõnavõtte, retsensioone. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1987. 216 lk.