Hanneleele Kaldmaa (born 1992) is a writer and artist.
She completed the French Lyceum in Tallinn and studied graphic arts at the Estonian Academy of Arts and natural science at the University of Tartu. Her mother is writer Kätlin Kaldmaa.
In 2015 Hanneleele Kaldmaa received the First Step literary prize of the Prima Vista literary festival for her short prose piece Kaarnad vaid ootavad (‘The Ravens are Merely Waiting’) published in the journal Värske Rõhk in 2014. In 2016, she received the annual award of Värske Rõhk for her poetry. Her debut collection Oliver (2017) which concentrates on the archetypical figure of a vagabond draws inspiration from the antiquity, Estonian heritage and literature. Under different forms of his name, firebringer Oliver O’Flame and his wife Tuvi (Dove) are off on adventures along real and imaginary paths. Her second poetry collection Sinustki võib saada fossiil (‘Even You Can Become a Fossil’, 2022) also makes use of folkloric subject matter, connecting it with themes of nature and myths.
Together with her mother Kätlin, Hanneleele Kaldmaa has written Kaks armastuslugu (‘Two Love Stories’, 2017) published in the Aja Lugu (‘Story of the Times’) series of the Petrone Print publishing company. The book deals with the relations between the mother and the daughter and, among other topics, takes a harshly painful glance at the Soviet childhood.
A. K. (Translated by I. A.)
Books in Estonian
Poetry collections
Oliver. Tartu: Elusamus, 2017, 69 lk
Sinustki võib saada fossiil. Tallinn: Hunt OÜ, 2022, 79 lk
Prose
Kätlin Kaldmaa, Hanneleele Kaldmaa, Kaks armastuslugu. Tartu: Petrone Print, 2017, 270 lk