Mairi Laurik

Mairi Laurik (real name Mairi Tempel, born 9 VII 1979) is a science-fiction writer.

Laurik was born and grew up in Mulgimaa region in South Estonia and completed Karksi-Nuia Gymnasium in 1997. In 2020, Laurik graduated from the University of Tartu cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in the speciality of information management. Since 2019, Mairi Laurik has been working at Tartu Public Library. A member of the Estonian Writers’ Union from 2017.

Laurik began literary endeavours as a teenager, writing children’s stories and poems. Laurik’s science-fiction stories began to be published in the science-fiction magazine Reaktor founded in 2011. In 2015, Laurik’s novel Süsteem (‘System’) deserved an honourable mention at the novel competition of the Estonian Writer’s Union; in 2016, it was published as a book. It is a postapocalyptic work of science fiction where the main lines of action unravel in Tartu and on the floodplains of the Emajõgi River in distant future.

In 2017, Laurik published the novel Novembriöö kirjad (‘Letters from November Night’) the action of which takes place in a gigantic nanotechnological industrial city that has been erected at the place of the present small town of Tamsalu in North Estonia. The book received the second place at the novel competition of Tänapäev publishers in 2016.

In 2016, Laurik won the first place at the competition for young adults’ novels arranged by the Estonian Children’s Literature Centre and Tänapäev publisher with his novel Mina olen Surm (‘I Am Death’). The reviewers have said that the book makes one think about life but does not take away the will to live. The novel On aeg! (‘It’s Time!’), published in 2021, is a sequel to Mina olen Surm. Roomet, the protagonist of these novels—who possesses the unique ability to see the “life clocks” hovering above people’s heads—continues his dangerous experimentation with this gift and his confrontation with the issues of life and death in the novel Eluga ei mängita! (‘You Don’t Play With Life!”, 2026). The theme of the apocalypse, which seems to be close to Laurik’s heart, continues in the youth novel Grathelia. Me jäime ellu (‘Grathelia. We Survived’, 2024), whose characters await the possible end of the world caused by a giant meteorite on a planet colonized by humans in the distant future.

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

Books in Estonian

Novels
Mina olen Surm. Tallinn: Tänapäev, 2016. 223 lk.
Süsteem. Tartu: Fantaasia, 2016. 344 lk.
Novembriöö kirjad. Tallinn: Tänapäev, 2017. 236 lk.
On aeg!. Tallinn: Tänapäev, 2021. 166 lk.
Grathelia. Me jäime ellu. Järelsõna Jüri Kallas. Tartu: Lummur, 2024. 357 lk.
Eluga ei mängita!. Tallinn: Tänapäev, 2026, 232 lk.