Pille Õnnepalu

Pille Õnnepalu (born 25 May 1958) is an art teacher and writer.

Pille Õnnepalu’s first poems appeared in literary journals in the 1980s. Toomas Haug, who compiled the collection Sõna (‘Word’, part 9, 1986) published by the journal Loomingu Raamatukogu, included several poems by Pille Õnnepalu, then called Pille Sova. Under the name of Pille Sova, her poems also appeared in the journal Vikerkaar in 1992. Pille Õnnepalu is a member of the Estonian Writers’ Union since 2018.

Her poetry collection Õde (‘Sister’, 2013) includes published and formerly unpublished poems from the late 1980s to the last day of 2012. The poetry collection is like a diary where the poet changes everyday situations into meaningful events. Õnnepalu records the simple, vanishing world and moments of present-day Estonia. The form of the images, dialogues and descriptions is playful; the author and her characters are simply poetic figures, exciting characters in literary flow.

In 2017, Pille Õnnepalu published the novel rääkimine vaikimine nutmine: vabaduse seletamatu ilu (‘speaking, silence, weeping: unexplainable beauty of freedom’). The book has been written in the form of a diary where fictional and real people and events merge into a harmonious whole. The protagonist loves present-day art that she views and describes, including her daughter’s paintings and other works and the processes of their making.

Pille Õnnepalu’s brother is writer Tõnu Õnnepalu; her daughter is artist Pire Sova.

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

Books in Estonian

Poetry
Õde. Tallinn: Henrik, 2013. 156 lk.

Prose
rääkimine vaikimine nutmine: vabaduse seletamatu ilu. Tartu: Henrik, 2017. 175 lk.